Today I returned to the Huntington, this time with Eric, to see what I missed yesterday. And I was wowed. Again and again. Best explained by the museum itself: “Remarkable Works, Remarkable Times: Highlights from the Huntington Library is an ongoing exhibition featuring some 150 rare objects drawn from the Library’s extraordinary collections. This unparalleled exhibition opens with manuscripts from the Middle Ages and ends with the diversity and development of the American West….
“The exhibition begins in the 15th century with the Ellesmere Chaucer, a spectacular manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Texts that inspired Shakespeare surround the first folio edition of his collected plays, published in 1623. Documents from Abraham Lincoln’s life and the Civil War accompany materials about the passage of the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862 and the preservation of Yosemite as a wilderness area in 1864. Susan B. Anthony and her pioneering fight for women’s suffrage anchor a section that also includes the works of her contemporary Mark Twain.
Additional thematic groupings showcase treasures such as Audubon’s spectacular Birds of America, Henry David Thoreau’s original manuscript of Walden, and Henry E. Huntington’s prized copy of the Gutenberg Bible — the first book printed in the West from movable type.”
So, not only did they have all these original books, letters, and photos, but each exhibit also gave an excellent explanation of the times and influence the material and writers had at the time.
For the past 27 years I have worked as a publisher and editor, so for me, the act of preserving history through the written word, has been of utmost importance. And this exhibit did this in the most profound and exquisite way.
After the Library, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Freshwater Pavilion Noodle House in the Chinese Gardens. Known as The Garden of Flowing Fragrance, Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園, combines the botanical with the artistic and scholarly. Many of the trees were flowering and the gardens are really beautiful.
We continued on to the Horton Simon Museum, also in Pasedena. The museum is known around the world as one of the most remarkable private art collections ever assembled. Over a thirty-year period industrialist Norton Simon (1907–1993) amassed an astonishing collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and a stellar collection of South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years. I focused on the Impressionists, of course. There were a lot of Rodin sculptures, sculptures and paintings by Degas, and paintings by every other artist that I love, including van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Pissaro, and more.
What I learned today: 1. There are no known manuscripts in Shakespeare’s handwriting but the first authoritative collection of 36 of his works in a folio format, which forms the basis for his later works, can be seen at the Huntington; and 2. Its possible to have snow, rain, hail, and sunshine all in one day.
