Giddy

Yesterday Courtney and I ventured out into the coldness and wended our way to the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge's main museum).  It's a gorgeous building inside and out:

I was a humanities major for enough of my time at BYU to appreciate art museums.  I enjoy them and was expecting to be satisfied again here.  But I had forgotten where I was.  I was in *Cambridge!  I was in Europe.  I have never been to an art museum in Europe before (to be fair to the US, I have never been to an art museum on the East Coast before either, and that, I think, would yield some of the same results).  Art museums in Europe hold originals from those artists who fundamentally revolutionized the history and practice of art!  Yesterday I was looking at originals from Monet, Van Gogh, Rubens, Titian, Pissarro, Poussin, Van Dyck, Barocci, Renoir, and Delacroix.  None of their very famous works of course, but still utterly delightful!  Courtney was laughing at the giddy expression on my face.  Okay, so I get excited looking at a canvas once touched by a master... 

*i.e. a very rich, very famous institution.

Barocci

Monet

Renoir

Van Dyck

Pissarro