NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

I was a little bit skeptic when I was searching for museums in Copenhagen and I found one called NY Carlsberg Glyptotek. I'm more like a wine kind of girl, what would I see in a museum called after Carlsberg? I'm kidding, of course, because NY Carlsberg Glyptotek is a museum of ancient and modern art that really made my trip to Copenhagen. The owner of Carlsberg brewery, Carl Jacobsen created one of the largest private collections of French and Danish sculptures and paintings, antiquities from Egypt and Mediterranean areas. In 1899, together with the building, the entire collection were donated to the public by Carl and his wife Ottilia Jacobson. Cheers!

I was completely touched to find there exquisite pieces carved by Rodin in the French and Danish Sculpture exhibition "From Block to Body". The exhibition is open till December 31, 2015 so if you are around, don't miss it! You may admire most of the sculptures from all angles since a lot of them are arranged in a manner that gives the visitor the chance to walk around them. The exhibition shows the journey of the artists from a block of raw marble to an infinite numbers of delicates bodies celebrating life and love or, on the contrary, expressing dramatic destinies, fear of the sadness moment of death.

The Blessings, Auguste Rodin

Eternal Spring, Auguste Rodin

Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, Rodin

Ovidian Metamorphosis, Rodin

 Shooting star, Felix Maurice Charpentier

...And a little bit of Greek tragedy: Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy

If you are lucky as I was you even get the chance to visit the museum and listen to a concert on the background at the same time. 

Click here to listen

Athena wearing a aegis with a medusa head on her chest.

The museum has a lovely collection of busts as well, I photographed my favorites.

The next sculpture (photographed from three different angles) of two heads - one old and one young -represent a personification of two lakes: Lake Albano and Lake Nemi.

As a bonus for visiting this museum you get a special exhibition: Edgar Degas (ends as well on December 31, 2015). The French painter was always preoccupied by movement: running horses, dancing ballerinas and he beautifully captured their movement in wax figures. He only exhibited one sculpture in his career: The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer that was displayed in 1881 at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition.

The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer

The French Masterpieces include Glyptotek's collections of French paintings of Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Degas etc. I didn't have time to photograph since I was very busy to exercise my new "talent": recognizing the painters...ok, stop bragging, Teona! :)

At the end I will show you just a glimpse of Egyptian art.

 The eternal question: blonde or brunette? :)

Funky monkey art

The museum displays mummies and mummies' cases in the Egyptian burial hall.   

Did you know that the Egyptians believed that after people die the soul takes the form of an invisible bird and flies among the living people and at night it returns to the tomb to get energy from the body. As long as the body exists the soul has a life...

At the end of the tour, relax for a bit and drink an organic tea or coffee in the beautiful Winter Garden of the museum.

I've stayed in Copenhagen for three days and I cannot really say I enjoyed the city very much but this museum was completely worth it and was by far my favorite place in Copenhagen.

No. 9, Nyhavn, the oldest house in the area (1681), Copenhagen

Palace of Catalan Music, Barcelona

Barcelona is the kind of city that no matter how often you go there you still have something new to discover. This time I've visited the Palace of Catalan Music and I promised myself that one day I'll listen to a concert in its magnificent hall. 

The palace was designed by the same architect who designed Casa Lleó Morera, the famous Lluis Domènech i Montaner and was built between 1905 and 1908. The owner of the building is the Catalan choir association "Orfeo Catala", founded in 1891. 

The Concert Auditorium of the palace is one of the most eccentrically concert halls I have ever seen and gave me the feeling that I was inside of a real music box decorated with stained painted glass, sculptures, ceramics and mosaics. The big windows and the impressive curved glass dome fill the hall with a pleasant natural light. This is the only auditorium in Europe that is illuminated during daytime just with natural light.

In the pictures below you'll notice that the hall has plenty of beautiful ceramic roses reminding you of the legend of Saint George and the dragon. Every year on April 23 they celebrate Saint George's Day or the day of the book and the day of the rose. On this day women offer men a book as a gift and they give them back a rose. The legend says that St George slayed the dragon and from his blood grew a rose that he offered to the saved princess. The scene of the knight killing the dragon is very common and you can notice the representation of it on many buildings in Barcelona, carved in stone, painted on glass or paintings or suggested by symbols.

At the back of the stage there is a choir of 18 young women whose lower parts are made of glazed colored tile and their upper parts are coming out the wall. The figures that give you the impression of a perpetual movement were carved by Eusebi Arnau. The women are dressed differently and are playing with different historical musical instruments symbolizing that the stage is not open only for one kind of music but for all the people with different tastes in music, from classical music and opera to jazz, folk or gospel.   

The Antoni Rigalt i Blanch's skylight dome of stained glass painted in shades of yellow and blue represent the sun and the sky.

At the end I want to give you a sample of the acoustics of the concert hall. Enjoy the organ playing Bach. The organ was the only foreign piece that was bought from Germany when the palace was built and decorated. 

                                                                      J S Bach