SPACES
Light catcher
MAYA JAYAPAL
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The Paul Getty Museum, suffused with light, is not as intimidating as many other museums are.
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Photo: Maya Jayapal
Enriching experience: The Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
A FIVE-MINUTE bus ride up the Santa Monica hills in Los Angeles to a building perched on top like an eagle's eyrie. There is an impression of light streaming in from above and from the sides of this remarkable construction, with spectacular vistas of slopes and hills. Light also streamed in through the clear glass panes of the floor-length windows and doors. The openness enhanced and gave a translucent quality to the clean straight lines, the circular staircases and the square and rectangular bodies of water.
Fusion of styles
The architect, Richard Meier, fused this modernistic style with classical materials in order to express Getty's ties with the past and his belief in the future. He used a rough hewn material called travertite, which was also used by the ancient Romans to build the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain and the colonnade of St. Peter's Basilica, and if you look closely, you will find fossils of leaves in the stones. And yet it reaches for the sky, situated as it is on the hills.
Set in 750 acres in the foothills of the Santa Monica hills, the Museum is the brainchild of J. Paul Getty, oil baron, businessman, writer and art collector. Originally his collections were housed in his Malibu property but in 1989 work began on the Santa Monica site, which was completed in 1997.
Basically, the Museum buildings are five in number and grouped around a central space into pavilions — the North, South, East, West and the Research Centre. In between are flowing spaces with pools, a sculpture garden, a cactus garden and spaces with bright hued flowers.
The Central Garden, which on this Sunday was overflowing with visitors, can be seen to full advantage from the terraces above. It has at its bottom, water cascading over stepped walls into a reflecting pool of a maze of azaleas. One can only imagine the colours when the flowers are in full bloom.
Vast collection
Enjoying the collection of antiquities, paintings, sculpture and photographs would take a good bit of time, certainly much more than the three hours which we had allotted for ourselves. And yet, the manner in which they were arranged, the fluid symmetry of the rooms do not intimidate as many museum collections might. They are viewer friendly, and if one is satiated with so much eclectic wealth, one has to only look outside, on to the spectacular views of sky and hill, or sit down in the spaces designated for eating and take a breather.
During his lifetime, Paul Getty purchased paintings representing every major European school of art between the 13th and 20th centuries. Old time favourites catch the eye — Van Gogh's Irises, rooted in the earth, vital and full of energy, the portrait of the Halberdier, casual yet swaggering, a hauntingly beautiful Christ by Correction, showing Veronica's veil which retained the impression of Christ's likeness miraculously when she wiped His face on His way to the crucifixion, Monet's wheat stacks in snow.
But Getty's favourites were the decorative arts, furniture, silver, ceramics and tapestries displayed in 15 galleries. It includes a magnificent bed, gilded, painted walnut with silk upholstery and ostrich feathers. A grand bed where the lady of the house received visitors, in a deep recess in a private bedroom.
Aside from these which form the permanent core of the museum, there is an amazing collection of photographs of American lives, documenting domesticity, observations of people and places within communities. A march through society at all levels.
The pride of place goes to the Icons of the Sinai, a collection of symbols/ icons from a monastery in the foothills of the Sinai. Hallowed, sacred, uplifting, the icons bring the saint into the space of the pious viewers i.e., St. Theodosia against a brilliant gold, which establishes the realm, she inhabits. But visually she leaps out into the vision of the viewer.
Haunting face
It is a hauntingly beautiful, strong face with hypnotic eyes, shrouded in black against which a gold chain gleams with same translucence as her hands. The portrait had a large crowd, transfixed in absolute silence, in front. The light was purposely kept dim and it was like a cathedral, hushed, reverential. I caught a glimpse of unshed tears in several faces — my own throat was choked at so much power, so much beauty.
I came out onto the bright sunshine, down the sweeping staircase, past along troughs of water bordered by slender Mexican cypresses, into the tram which was to carry me back, but the faces lingered on in my mind — those on the walls and those who saw them.
It transcended the permanent collection which could have been that of any other museum except that the setting was different, and lifted the day on to a spiritual level.
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