My two hits for the day were the Page Museum at the LaBrea Tar Pits, and the LA County Museum.

The La Brea Tarpits contain asphalt that formed after the sea was covered over millions of years by organic trash and debris. The bubbling mass is caused by natural gas or methane, and the goo on the top is asphalt. La Brea has some of the most complete deposits in the world where many animal remains were preserved in the tar. When animals got stuck in the tar, they in turn from their scents and sounds attracted predators and birds. Eventually all the living creatures got stuck in the thick mess and died, leaving intact an entire ecosystem. While Dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago and Homo Sapiens 200,000 yrs ago, these animals found in LaBrea were much later, from 40,000 years ago. During the Ice Age these animals migrated south and settled in this area. This move might have been a fine annual sojourn were it not for getting stuck.

Photos above, clockwise:

1. Tar Pits, with occasional eruption or two
2. Display of Ice Age bison, ca. 40,000 BCE (not a dinosaur)
3. Researchers in lab studying bone fragments

In the afternoon, I decided to focus on the Islamic Art and German Expressionists at the well-endowed LA County.

I couldn’t find any traditional Islamic Art on display, but was captivated by a contemporary exhibition of Islamic artists.

Photos, from top, left to right:

1. Display of women as a topic in art (very cautiously and respectfully depicted, although one showed women being trained to scale a wall in the Police Academy in their full burkas). The Ipad in the foreground was a very effective tool available to the public to access additional information about the collection nearby and to read about the artist and the work beyond a tag and title. Seating with the Ipad also made the experience of doing and viewing art much more pleasurable.

2. Display of text describing artwork of woman viewing life through a veil
3. Tombstone of dissident who was not allowed to have a monument in the cemetary

For further reading: http://www.lacma.org/about/press/islamic-art-now-contemporary-art-middle-east

German expressionism sounds pretty dry, but like all things German there is much more depth than what meets the eye. My first introduction today perusing the LACMA collection was to Ernst Barlach. He was a graphic artist of sorts, and sculptor who tried tackling the horrors of poverty and dying. Although trained in Dresden and Berlin as a fine artist, it was his travels to Russia that affected him deeply. He drew from Goethe’s Faust and other literary contexts to depict the emotions of the suffering and the end of the world. The information provided at the exhibition is attached.

(For further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Barlach)

Other German Expressionists, like Rottluff who was instrumental in Die Brücke group and Otto Dix from die Blaue Reiter movement, moved away from the illusionary three dimensional depictions on a flat plane to more abstract forms that introduced feelings into their art. More use of color and obscuring the picture plane were techniques used, and inner feelings of fear, alienation and tragedy were common themes. The role of religion was often challenged, and an ominous premonition of bad things to come seemed evident in the short period of 1913-1925, before this type of art, considered degenerate, was banned by the Nazis in 1933. (for further reading: http://www.lacma.org/art/collection/german-expressionism).

However, there was a third and accidental discovery. I found myself looking for women artists. Initially I thought it would be nearly impossible. I was curious about the lack of noteworthy women artists mentioned in the play “Heidi Chronicles” (I saw it in NYC earlier this month). I was delighted to find several examples with relative ease. Perhaps there are female artists, albeit fewer in the earlier development of art. See those below:

1. female artist and work to be identified
2. Hannah Hoch, Picture XI Blue, 1920
3. Barbara Hepworth, Reclining Form, 1959
4. female artist and work to be identified

Being a contributing member of the Fine Arts Museums not only gives you reciprocal membership at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, but over 100 other museums throughout the U.S. So if you intend to hit major museums like I am within one year, it’s a worthwhile membership. It includes the MOCA in LA other key museums in lesser traveled cities.

Last night we attended the opening of the new exhibition at the Legion of Honor. Sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum, it featured fashion from the 20th century. Here were a few of the displays:

The well attired attendees were worth seeing and viewing, along with one of the room collections in evening splendor.

Until you’ve been to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, you won’t really have a good grasp or perspective on dinosaurs and the age in which they proliferated. The extensive displays, educational material and timelines were fascinating. Embarrassingly, it was my first time there, but I’m glad I finally made it up to myself and others.

While dinosaurs were found throughout the world, I had only heard about the dinosaur fossils and bones that were discovered in North America. Many of the intact fossils were found in swampy areas where the dinosaurs got stuck in the mud (literally). After the mud solidified to stone over millions of years and their bodies disintegrated, the dinosaurs became fossils. This enabled paleontologists to access many complete sets of bones for research. One of the early elephants, known as a mammut, was found locally in Newburgh, NY, in the back yard of Vassar!

The above photo shows a early rhino-like dinosaur. Below are photos of the mammut (with the elephant tusk), an early moose-like dinosaur and other pretty creepy looking animals. It seems that a huge meteor that hit somewhere in the Yucatan caused the extinction of dinosaurs around 65 million years ago. Only the birds that could fly were among the survivors, yet they too met an eventual decline.

Many of you familiar with San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park may not realize that it was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. He also designed New York’s Central Park. There are many similarities in shape and proportion, but Golden Gate Park is actually 20% larger. At the same time, the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco must have modeled the displays of animals after those in the AMNH. The displays of taxidermy (“stuffed animals”) reminded me the ones we took our kids to sketch in the Academy. (Kids can now stay overnight at the AMNH, just like in Ben Stiller’s “Night at the Museum” movie).

It’s no wonder that Teddy Roosevelt was so awed by the scale of these living creatures and initiated the National Parks so more people could see them. The Alaskan Brown Bear, bison and Alaskan moose were among my favorite exhibits, shown below.