Monday Musings

Yesterday, I visited the The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. I was last there about sixty-five years ago with my Girl Scout Troop. I remember little about that trip except for two paintings: “The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough and “ Pinkie” by Thomas Lawrence. I was so fascinated by them that I was gifted by my grandmother a statute of each which sat on my bureau.

Yesterday, I visited them again. I’d forgotten their enormity and luminosity in a hall with other very large portraits, all of them about 6 ft. by 4 ft. I’d forgotten that Gainsborough didn’t paint both figures. Yesterday, I heard the story of “Pinky” by a docent. The girl, Sarah Moulton, the model for “Pinky” died shortly after the painting was completed.

Today the portraits are in two separate rooms. In the 1960s they were hung opposite of each other. As a child, I wondered about their conversations after the museum closed.

Over the years, The Huntington has grow in its gardens and buildings. Yesterday, I only saw a portion of the the gardens: the Conservatory, the Japanese Heritage Shoya House, and the Chinese Medicinal Garden. We passed through the Japanese Garden portion on the way to the Huntington House. It’s unfortunate I live a thousand miles from here.

I was in luck to see my first corpse flower. It’s not quite ready to bloom so not smell but at first I thought they were fake.

Bonus: They had a station to create a black out poem from excerpts that included Brontë.

The Huntington Library