Portland Art Museum

January 5, 2010

Over the weekend we visited the Portland Art Museum for a rare chance to see Raphael’s La Velata in person.

Alfred Maurer’s George Washington struck me as an example of just how accurately Cubism can resemble a familiar face.

Thomas Moran: The Grand Canal. Its atmosphere reminds me of my favorite from the Art Institute of Chicago: Alberto Pasini’s Circassian Cavalry Awaiting their Commanding Officer at the Door of a Byzantine Monument; Memory of the Orient, which was my iPhone wallpaper for a couple of years. (And is again, now.)

And finally, from the China Design Now exhibit, the Sinosteel International Plaza, which confirms in my mind that the United States has the world’s most boring architecture.