Post by Grubb.
Collecting weathervanes is one thing, but amassing whirligigs as well, who else but Electra Havemeyer Webb would have the resources, much less know the difference?
But before I could immerse myself in objets d’weather, I had to check out the Bierstadt that I heard was on exhibit in another building at the Shelburne Museum. I mean we’re glorying in the 19th century here, and who has the most gloriously radiant studies of nature but my man, Albert Bierstadt? If the landscape wasn’t transcendent he didn’t paint it. And if he did paint it on one of his large canvases, you, as a mortal, had a small part to play. So I was ready for another sweeping mountain view with luminous clouds and…what’s this?
Whoa, Albert, that’s dark! Like deep Stygian. It’s supposedly a sea battle in the South Pacific during the Civil War, so, okay, it’s gloomy and bleak, but the moon behind those clouds casts a supernal glow, like Bierstadt’s romantic feelings are still shining through. Up close, nose to canvas, it’s stunning.
Amazingly luminescent, even from canvas to phone to computer monitor.