Gorgeous architecture, Amazing vistas of L.A., extraordinary gardens and landscape architecture, and an art collection from classical antiquity to contemporary photography and multi-media installations, the Getty Museum is by far the best art museum (and cultural center) on the West Coast. Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, the J. Paul Getty Trust commissioned architect Richard Meier in the late 1990s to build a remarkable campus to exhibit art, facilitate innovative research, and assemble a public space for visitors from around the world to gather and appreciate the creative side of human kind.
A commission of a lifetime, the Getty Museum's budget was approximately $1.2 billion, with the remainder of the art trust at around $3.0 billion, demonstrating a greater perspective on the priorities in life and culture. The architectural modernism of Meier shows influences of such 20th century visionaries as Le Corbusier. It is said that Meiers sat on the site before designing his master plan so that he could orient the axises and find the most effective site lines along with seeing how the light changes in the course of a day. The bright travertine stone imported from Italy and the broad, volume-metric grid contrast dramatically with the rich blue, Southern California sky.
The collection includes such masters as Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Gauguin, Degas, and secondary artists of the Renaissance, Romantics, Baroque, illuminated manuscripts from the middle ages, decorative arts, and ancient sculpture, along with contemporary artists and special exhibits.
Admission is FREE, so you have no excuse not to visit one of the most extraordinary sights in the greater Los Angeles area, let alone the Western United States. Think L.A. lacks true culture and the thought of pointless young Hollywood stars and other so-called L.A. attractions bore you to tears? Well, make it up to the Getty and you will not be disappointed, granted you still have a pulse. There truly is something for everyone.
Music Respectfully "Recently" Dave Matthews Band.
P.S. I'd say they have an art endowment large enough to purchase my painting: "Visual Rhetoric" and provide me a grant or artist in residence to create more work, continue to develop my Spective concept, and possibly travel to do more multi-media artwork around the world. One can dream; sounds good to me. In any case, the sanctuary acropolis of the Getty Campus found North of L.A. is a marvelous place to spend an afternoon!
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