Reverend Ken's Blog: #2211: Sunday, January 6: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

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Post 2211
- 8 years and 6 days since I started this blog -

Journal
(written 1/7/19)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent.

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

I've been waiting for the right day to visit Lisbon's biggest museum of art, the Museo Calouste Gulbenkian. Sunday is the day. The all-exhibit pass is 20 Euros (12 for oldsters like me), but on Sundays after 2pm, it's free.

I haver a long-standing policy of avoiding tourist things, but I make an exception for museums. I haver loved going to museums all my life. My parents did a great thing when they determined to give their children the best cultural upbringing New York City could offer - in other words, as good as it gets.

Literally as soon as my sister, who was the youngest, three-and-a-half years younger than me, could be carried without being a problem, the family made trips to museums - especially the Museum of Modern Art, my mother's favorite - but also the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of Natural History, and the Jewish Museum.

When I go anywhere for the first time, I check out museums. Often, when I don't, I get a skewed, negative impression of that place (unless it doesn't have an art museum - that's neutral, there's only so much great art to be collected and exhibited). Los Angeles is a case in point. I hated that place until my first visit after my son moved there, and I went to LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art), after enjoying the architecture and views of the Getty more than the collection there - and the snooty guards. That visit completely turned around my opinion of LA.

But I digress.

I had heard and read wonderful things about this museum, and, cutting to the chase, I was not disappointed. For starters, it has magnificent grounds. A warm(-ish), sunny afternoon brought out a lot of families and students to play and picnic in the middle of Lisbon, surrounded by high-rises along major boulevards.

The buildings that house the collection are also very attractive. Even the snack bar looks good (I can't comment on the food there, although it looked attractive). I walked through the cafeteria on my way in to look at the exhibits -I didn't go in the main entrance after walking around the park-like grounds.

The art on display, all from before the 20th-century, was mind-bogglingly good. There were some exhibits that blew me away: one was home furnishings, presumably of the very wealthy, who could afford to patronize artists and craftsman for exquisite custom things, from silverware to clothing, chairs and tables to dining room centerpieces, jewelry to wall-hangings.

Seeing these things here, I feel something. I am moved by the artistry and beauty that humans are capable of, even when they are working in the service of the mundane. I saw desks with hardware so exquisitely designed, of such intricacy and delicacy, with inlays so beautifully designed and executed.

I wonder, at these times, at the cost of progress. Is this kind of thing being done anymore? I have never seen anything produced in my lifetime that is comparable. I know that doesn't mean it isn't being done now. After all, unless, in the 18th-Century, for instance, I knew the artist or was a member of the wealthy elite, I wouldn't have seen these things then. But with all the media making art so accessible these days, I wonder that all I've ever seen is wealthy people bidding for hundreds-of-years-old items of artisan craftsmanship at Sotheby's.

I mean, I appreciate modern art, and it does things that previous generations of artists never even attempted - bypassing our critical sensory interpretations to have an immediate emotional reaction - but how does it compare to the exquisite detail and filigree sculpture of this dragonfly ornament?

The collection of paintings includes the Dutch masters, the English greats - more Turners and Gainsboroughs than I've ever seen in one plade, in fact, as well as other European classics I've only previously seen pictures of in art books. Very well displayed, too.

Ordinarily, this extraordinary collection of paintings would be the highlight, but the sculptures on display, at least the way I feel on this particular day, attract me more.

Degas, Rodin, Carpoux, Dalou - I am enthralled. Many sculptures are displayed in rooms otherwise dedicated to paintings, but some are displayed juxtaposed with views of the grounds.

All in all, I spend almost four hours walking around this enormous museum, and I am fairly certain I didn't get to everything.

That's all right. I left feeling good, grateful for my experience, and stimulated by the sensory feast I've indulged.

And I'm really very hungry - I've been on my feet for almost five hours. I consult trip advisor, and it turns out I'm in the neighborhood of two restaurants I have an interest in.

One of them is packed. The maitre d's desk is unattended. People are two-deep at the bar, and waiting at every available seat in front of the maitre d's desk. I wait to see if I can perhaps be accommodated as a single, but never see any staff to plea to. So I walk across the street.

Restaurante Marisquieira Valbom (I'm on Avenida Valbom) seems also to be doing big business, but there's a spot at the bar near the cash register, a few feet from an on-ice display of the catch of the day (you know I think that is an excellent indicator of quality).

But the smiling man behind the counter isn't having any of me eating at the bar, and guides me, himself, to a table for two that is being cleared right then. He doesn't speak English, but the waiter clearing the table does, and I am welcomed, and seated and brought a menu.

I'll talk about the food below, but the important thing here is that this is a family restaurant. The table next to me has about sixteen people, ranging from infants to a gentleman who looks (to me) to be in his nineties. And behind that table is an almost-that big crowd and it's somebody's birthday.

In fact, I'm the only lone diner in the restaurant. There are a few couples, but the majority of tables are seating six oor eight people, including children of all ages.

So the restaurant is noisy. However, it is a comforting kind of noise, the kind that doesn't set off alarms with me, or make me feel self-conscious. In fact, other diners are the 'entertainment' for me as I eat, and whenever somebody's eyes meet mine, they are accompanied by a smile.

Dinner is consumed slowly. I leave without dessert, wanting or needing to walk off the big meal I've had up until then. So after I pay, I go on another directionless ramble, to find one of the city's tens of thousands of pastelarias for a cafe or two and something sweet.

I look in at a couple, without being inspired, then encounter one, after about a half hour, that reminds me of an old ice cream store I used to go to as a kid (Jahn's, if you were around Queens in the fifties or sixties). I think it's a good choice, with the counter ladies smiling and taking excellent care of my requests.

Although I've finished my food under the approving eye of a matronly woman who has unobtrusively made sure I waited for and wanted for nothing I didn't get, I pay and sit at an outside table of the cafe, waiting the few moments it takes my Uber driver to find me.

It's been a hell of a day. I get home after eleven, and I'm ready to sack out, content, grateful, and looking forward to tomorrow's adventure.

Food Comment