I had seen the Palace of Fine Arts many times, and spent fair amount of time admiring swans of the lagoon surrounding the Palace, but never had never gone inside to be under the dome of that neoclassical structure, which was "a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still situated on its original site. It was rebuilt in 1965, and renovation of the lagoon, walkways, and a seismic retrofit were completed in early 2009."[source: wikipedia]
Finally, I examined and admired the ravishing details leisurely and I was mostly delighted by the female sculptures peering into the dome, a playful variation of caryatids.
Many people chose the iconic site to be photographed, including several wedding parties:
After a while, we went to the nearby Crissy Field, just underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and had a view of the dome from afar, which seemed rather plainer, smaller, lost and melancholic, but the memory of the delightful details of the entire site assured that the beauty, however hidden, was unconcealable. They were there forever.
When the evening fell, the place grew more magical and my faithful swans graced this enchanting place, as expected:
In the Crissy Field, the Golden Gate Bridge provided a marvelous backdrop for the wonderful beach park.
A huge cargo went by the infamous Alcatraz, and it was amazing how big those ships nowadays were, and fast too:
Now, turning back to Crissy Field, which had many gigantic abstract sculptures, mostly amazing for their sheer sizes:
Many people enjoyed the public space and I was hugely entertained by an amazing long-tailed kite, expertly manipulated by a young man:
Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Three Heads, Six Arms (Nezha), Giant Bronze Scuplture at Civic Plaza, San Francisco
- From Trash to Art, or From Trash to Elevated Trash
- Rodin and Richard Serra in Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
- Art in the Streets of San Francisco
- "Prague", St. Stephen's Day, Richard Diebenkorn and James Turrell
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