Last Day in CDMX: Let's Go to the Soumaya!

This definitely qualifies as an "iconic" shape for a building

This is my last day in Mexico City. I know it is my last day here because the "within 24 hours of departure" COVID test required for me to get back home came back negativo. (Actually, the test results said "negative," but I like to drop the occasional palabra en espanol to create the impression that I know more of the language than I do. Is it working?)

The day's chosen destination: the Soumaya.

The Soumaya is an art museum in the very upscale Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City. It was built by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (you may know him as the major shareholder of the New York Times) to house his personal and very extensive art collection. The Soumaya was an excellent choice for the day because (a) not many museums in Mexico City are open right now due to COVID; (b) of the few museums that are open, most of those are closed on Sundays (or Mondays); and (c) admission is free.

I should add (d), it is an impressive collection. Eclectic, but focused on a few specific areas. I was told by the hotel concierge that the smart strategy is to take the elevator to the top and walk down through the various floor. So I did.

The top floor, the only floor with natural light, is sculpture, primarily Rodin and Rodin-like pieces. I recognized this guy from the Rodin Museum in Paris (the one in France) (I've been to the Paris in Kentucky, too, but there are no art museums there, just horse farms):

He's one of the burghers of Calais from the other of Rodin's two masterpieces, the Burghers of Calais. Rodin sculpted lots and lots of studies before compiling the final work, which is in his museum in Paris (the one in France). So there are plenty of Burghers to go around. Sr. Slim grabbed him one.

Rodin did a lot of work before settling on the final product. For example, he often would sculpt the "nude" body of his subject first:

This is the beginnings of his sculpture of Balzac. Only after he was satisfied that he got the body right would be "clothe" the sculpture. Here is the finished Balzac:

This is Rodin's Minotaur:

This is his "Falling Man."

He's kind of over-dramatizing the fall, don't you think?

And here is the one we all are waiting for: El Pensador:

This is one of two Rodin's Thinkers in this museum. And Sr. Slim is barely scratching the surface on Thinkers. There are more original Rodin Thinkers out there than iPhones.

This is from the top of Rodin's other masterpiece, the Gates of Hell:

The Thinker is actually one small part of the very large Gates of Hell. And this is Rodin's "Blessings":

A full Gates of Hell will later be seen on the ground floor. We'll get there. Remember, with Rodin, there are always multiple versions of the same thing.

But the sixth floor has more than just Rodin (as if more were needed). There is this young man:

The Imperial Prince by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

And there is this large collection of heads, from Honore Daumier:

As I may have said, a lot of the collection is grouped thematically. So right in front of a bunch of heads sculpted by Honore Daumier is the head of Honore Daumier, sculpted by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle:

And this is Honore Daumier's bust of Louis XIV:

Is he the Louis who was the Sun King? They had so many dang Louises in France it's hard to keep track.

Here is another example of grouping by theme. Los Luchadores. The Wrestlers.

This is credited merely to an anonymous Italian. Same name. Same pose. Only in white:

This one is credited to Pietro Bazzanti, a non-anonymous Italian. And here are the two, side by side:

There is a lot of this thematic grouping throughout the museum.

This one isn't part of a theme. It's The Wave, by Camille Claudel:

And here is a more famous work by Honore Daumier, the Emigrants:

Again, multiple versions of this. I saw one version in Paris (the one in France).

This one fooled me into thinking it was another Rodin:

It's not. It's by Alfredo Pina. It's part of his "Study for the Monument to Dante Alighieri." If it seems like I've spent a lot of time going through the sculpture on the top floor, yes. I have. I like sculpture better than the other visual arts. And sculpture photographs much much much better than painting.

Which I am about to prove.

We are now on the fifth floor. Seeing that today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I had to include this work by Mexican artist Jorge Gonzalez Camarena. And representing the pre-hispanic history of Mexico City is this work:

"Ideal Reconstruction of a Pre-Hispanic Ceremony," by a Czech/French artist Jean-Frederic Maximilien von Waldeck. There's a whole lot of different cultures in that one name.

Moving along, we come upon another juxtaposed theme. My favorite artists, together:

Botero! Fernando Botero is the Colombian artist known for his figures so rotund they make Rubens' girls look anorexic.

And right behind the Boteros? Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot!

This is Corot's "Peasants in the Surroundings of the Village of d'Avray." Only Corot gave it a French name. And the museum gave it a Spanish name. So I compromised and used the English name.

The museum probably had about 10 Corots. Corot was quite prolific. OK, one more Corot, but this is the last one I swear:

"Goatherd Sitting in a Clearing over a Rock."

Right beside the Corots was this one.

This is by Auguste Renoir. I love it! It's called "Landscape. After Corot." This is Renoir doing his version of a Corot. And it's all kinds of awesome.

There were a couple of Van Goghs, but they were from before Van Gogh developed his distinctive style of layering the paint on thick.

That one is "After the Storm (or Shepherd with Flock of Sheep)" Nice. But not the most Van Gogh of Van Goghs, no?

As we continue to walk down through the museum, there are more of these thematic juxtapositions. Here are a collection of Our Lady of Guadalupes (or should it be "Our Ladies of Guadalupe"?):

And this is a collection of Christ's dead body being taken down from the cross.

One in particular stands out. It is this one. Top, left side, one in:

It is by Rubens. And it shows why Rubens is a master. Compared to the other paintings of the same theme, this one looks almost three-dimensional when you see it on the museum walls. The figures, especially the man in red, really jump out from the canvas.

Here is another very interesting thematic grouping I've never ever seen before:

The leitmotif? They are all depictions of the Tower of Babel. I don't think I've seen even one painting of the Tower of Babel before. And today? Three. My cup of Towers of Babel runneth over.

I'm getting closer to the ground as I now can look over the edge and see the ground floor.

That's Rodin's Gates of Hell on the left. We'll see it closer. Be patient.

We're now on the second floor: Asian arts. There is a lot of ivory here. And this chess set:

This is Emperor Qianlong, carved long and thin from a single tusk: 

You could make a case for Qianlong, who ruled from 1735 to 1796, as China's greatest emperor of the second millennium. But we're in an art museum, not a Chinese history museum. So I won't make the case. Not today.

It was this particular work that really brought home the fact that ivory is elephant tusk.

Down one more floor and we're in the land of decorative arts.

Elton John and Liberace both would kill for a piano like that (well, Liberace would if he were still alive).

And this is a Thomas Alva Edison original phonograph:

Finally, we are back on the ground floor.

And everyone wants a close look at Rodin's Gates of Hell:

Everyone is ignoring the giant version of The Thinker. Told you there was more than one in this museum.

And we conclude with "La Conquista de Mexico," by Mexican artist Pedro Villegas.

 

Overall, I would say that the Soumaya was well worth the admission price. Oh wait, it was free. Then it was well worth the 240 peso (about $12) cab ride. And more! It would be worth visiting even on a day when other museums were open (but if you are ever in Mexico City, save it for a day when nothing else is open).

Time for another 5km walk back to my hotel, only this time from the opposite direction. I came upon two very interesting sites. First, Dr. Martin Luther King:

What's so interesting about a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King? In the United States, Dr. King is usually shunted off to the poor and bad parts of town. Not so in Mexico! He is right here in Polanco, probably the most upscale part of town, near the Range Rover dealer, and the Gucci and Louis Vuitton stores. Good for him!

And, as I got onto Paseo de La Reforma, I saw this statue:

Josip Broz. We know him as Tito, the great Yugoslav leader. On Paseo de La Reforma in Mexico City. I believe this is the only time I've seen a rendering of Tito outside of the former Yugoslavia.

And this concludes my four-day, five-night visit to Mexico City. It was a nice, brief getaway. Vacationing in the time of COVID has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, prices are cheaper and crowds are thinner (although a whole lot of Mexico City still was extremely crowded) (especially the roads). On the minus side, a lot is closed. Even places that are open can be closed in part or in very large part. But it's not the fault of the people you're visiting.

And, I don't know about you, but I don't have enough time left on this planet to put my life on hold and still see and do all that I want to see and do while there's still time. And this was the time for CDMX.

Walking the Paseo de la Reforma (with a Detour to See a Diego Rivera Mural)

The intersection of Av. Juarez and Paseo de la Reforma (and a few other streets to make it all confusing)

Out with the old. In with the new. It is a 5km walk from the Metropolitan Cathedral back to my hotel. Only 4km from the Palacio del Bellas Artes. 5km is about 3 miles. That's the length of a morning dog walk. So let's hoof it!

First a walk through a park. This is the Alameda Central, the city's oldest municipal park:

Kids playing in one of those fountains where the water shoots straight up is always a good photo. The only way the picture gets better is if there is a dog in there.

This is the monument to Benito Juarez, which is fitting since we are still on Av. Juarez and, on the long march home, are not yet on Paseo de la Reforma.

I'm not sure why it's all boarded up like that. Probably the COVID.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be representing, other than, maybe, perhaps, woman on top.

And this is a fountain of Poseidon/Neptune, and yet it is dry as a bone. Double the irony.

The next stop on the walk was a building repurposed to house a Diego Rivera mural. And this is the mural inside the building:

And this is the bust of Diego Rivera:

I actually am a big fan of Sr. Rivera. Even though he was a communist! Hey, most artists seem to have abhorrent politics. It goes with the craft. Let's look at the mural in a little more detail.

This side, generally, is the good life. The bourgeoisie, to use the lingo of Sr. Rivera's politics. There's an image of an American embedded in there. Do you see him?

Old Fuss and Feathers himself! General Winfield Scott, one of two hero-generals of the United States' Mexican War in the late 1840s (well, heroic generals to those of us in the United States) (less so, in the eyes of Mexico). Gen. Scott was the losing candidate in the 1852 presidential election, losing to the racist drunkard failed president (and ancestor of another failed president, W. Bush), Franklin Pierce. Yes, I never miss an opportunity to explain my intense dislike of the failure that is Franklin Pierce.

The standout image in the middle section is death:

Mexican culture is far more comfortable with death than is U.S. culture. And who is that holding hands with Death?

Our artist, himself, Diego Rivera, along with his wife Frida Kahlo. Rivera and Kahlo were kind of the John and Yoko of their day. (I will not elaborate on which I feel played which role. YMMV.) Kahlo for some unfathomable reason has become the more prominent of the two in recent times, thank you Salma Hayek. This despite the fact that Rivera is the one who had all the artist talent in the relationship. Oops. Did I just say that? We'll see them both later in the mural as we move left to right.

Finally, in the third section:

This is definitely the more "loaded" politically, with images of violence, revolution, peasants being evicted from their land, and a young Diego Rivera eating a sandwich (torta, in Spanish):

A plethora of torta. Not very communist there, Sr. Rivera.

There is a very interesting image buried in this picture that the guide to the mural does not explain. Do you see it, right above the peasant family being evicted from their land, and right below the horse's leg:

It is a man shooting another man in the head (left eye to be precise). There is no explanation as to who is the shooter and who is the shoot-ee. 

The mural is a fantastic example of Diego Rivera's work. And it was commissioned to be displayed in the dining room of a luxury hotel. The hotel was destroyed in a powerful earthquake (8.1) in 1985. The mural was saved and moved to a dedicated building. It does not look worse for the wear. Here's a photo of the earthquake damage that is in the museum:

Time to leave Av. Juarez for the long walk down Paseo de la Reforma. But a few blocks back from that intersection, down Avenida de la Republica, is this monument to the 1938 Revolution:

It is part of the Museo Nacional de la Revolución, which I did not go in.

This is a monument to women:

Please note that the female figure at the top is two-dimensional and too weak to stand on her own, needing support from behind. There is absolutely nothing metaphorical about it. Nothing. Banish such thoughts.

This is the Monumento a Cuauhtémoc, the Monument to Cuauhtémoc, for whom the neighborhood we are about to enter is named.

Here's a better view, although it is from behind.

For some reason, this bit of public art reminded me of home:

The cards look a bit distressed. Perhaps time for a new deck? Let's combine the two into one image:

Cuauhtémoc framed by a deck of cards.

These sofas (loveseats, actually, to be pedantically precise) are not as comfortable as they appear:

They are cast from metal. More durable that way.

The next traffic circle on the Paseo de la Reforma is Glorieta de La Palma. Glory of the Palm.

It's a palm tree. I guess they ran out of ideas for monuments at this point.

And finally we arrive at El Ángel de la Independencia.

Because this is one of the signature sites of Mexico City, it is a popular photo op. Given the young women in a billowy dresses and the young men in matching tuxedos, I assumed wedding photography:

I assumed wrong. The kids were too young.

This is the place in town to go for a photo shoot for your quinceañera. Apparently, in Mexican culture, for a young girl, her quinceañera is a more lavish celebration than her wedding. Not every girl has a wedding. But every girls turns 15.

And there were several photo shoots -- with professional photographers -- all lined up to get photos from the same spot.

Here is the view down Paseo de la Reforma from atop the Angel of Independence:

Another key thing about reaching El Ángel de la Independencia meant that I was almost back to my hotel. The next traffic circle was the Diana Fountain:

Diana and her bow, just a half of a block from my hotel.

At this point, I was parched and my feet were soar. I rested up before a hamburger supper at a local upscale eatery:

OK. Not so upscale, but that's what I wanted. Anton's Hamburguesas, a local's joint where I was the only one speaking English.

A huge "Texana" burger (BBQ sauce and onions), probably a half a pound of beef. A side order of french fries, which could have fed a family. The menu said only cerveza, and I got Corona. Not my first choice, but a light (very very light) beer was probably right to accompany the meal. Too much food to finish and only 200 pesos.