I finally did it, I did something touristy on my trip here. I went to the Palais du Beaux Arts in Lille, and it was quite an interesting day. I got started walking the museum backwards, which I now think is actually preferable to walking them forwards. I don't think I get much more out of an art museum from any sort of chronology and you get to see people in the clusters that they arrived in, so it improves the people watching too. I do think that I prefer to go to museums with people though, it's hard for me to stay engrossed in the art for hours on end, and it's nice to have someone to talk about the art with.
I tried to see everything they had, and I was suprised by the things I liked the most. The primary exhibit is alot of paintings with a few sculptures intermixed. Most of it felt kind of the same to me, lots and lots of dying Jesus, or chaotic scenes where it's hard to see any part of it for all of the noise in the picture. When something stood out as unique though, it was really impressive, and I made a small list of artists that I wanted to look up more about.
There was a room full of sculptures which was awesome, but I think I'm just more of a sculpture sort of person. The thing I like most though was in the basement, and a much smaller exhibit. There was a tour of really really old works, mostly statues and wooden engraving plaque sort of things. Some of them were just crazy old, like around 100AD old. That was cool, and I broke the rules and touched an awesome statue of a monk, just because I wanted to touch something that old.
Then there was an exhibit of these really awesome carved elevation maps. They were atleast 15ft across, and had the most incredible detail. If I understood anything from the descriptions, they were initially done as military maps of the border of frances territory, so that commanders and kings could make better defensive decisions. There were around 20 of them, and they were kept in this realy neat low light low ceilinged room, very cave like.
All in all, this farm has been alright. I'm a little worn out, because the working days have been long and hard, and I've tried to make the best of my days off. I'm excited for my next farm, and the next post will be after I arrive there on Monday.