Ward's Island Ferry Dock

Bill and I returned to Toronto from Ward's Island.

 The sun was setting and the dock was peaceful.

We were early for the ferry so we parked our bikes and wandered around.

That's the Ward's Island yacht club.

Here comes the ferry.

 Once aboard, Bill and I were surrounded by couples and families posing against the cityscape and enjoying the results.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

No trip to NYC would be complete without a trip to Brooklyn's Botanic Gardens. Go early, before your visit to the Brooklyn Museum next door.

 We wandered into the grounds as we have so many times before. I noticed that the benches have interesting memorial plaques.

I liked this memorial. I asked Bill what it meant to "love life". He said he thought it meant loving all of life, both the good and the bad. 

 We lingered for a moment by the fountain in the Osborne Garden.

Then we carried on along the path to the beautiful Japanese Garden.

We had arrived early on a Sunday morning and the garden was an oasis of quiet.

We walked around the edge of the lake.

Turtles were basking on the rocks.

Branches of the surrounding trees dipped into the still water.

 Fennel in the Shakespeare Garden

 Autumn crocuses.

  "Now then, for my journey to the yonder world I'll wear a gown of flowers."

 Next we arrived at the Steinhardt Conservatory and the lily pools.

We saluted the sprite of the Rose Arc Pool on our way back to the street and the Brooklyn Museum next door.

Brooklyn Botanic Bonsai

At the bonsai pavilion at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden 

Brooklyn Museum's American Collection

 When John and I stepped off the elevator onto the 5th floor of the Brooklyn Museum we were greeted by Alice Neel's portrait of John I. H. Baum (1974). Baum was the head of the museum's Dept. of Painting and Sculpture from 1936 to 1952.

 The wall text informed us that it was Baum's idea to collect American paintings, sculpture and crafts from all periods of America's history. So we have him to thank for much of what we are about to see.

American Identities is the current show. There were many works that we had never seen before.  John loved this George Bellows painting, A Morning Snow-Hudson River, 1910.

 with its beautiful details.

Bertram Hartman, Trinity Church and Wall Street, 1929.

The museum mixes periods and arts. These are Hopi pots.

Décontractée, 1990, in pink marble by Louise Bourgeois.

The Sculptor, 1964, by John Koch. 

The Sculptor (detail)

The All-Powerful Hand; a provincial Mexican religious painting on metal by an unknown artist.

Marsden Harley's expressionistic Evening Storm, Schoodic, Maine, No 2, 1942

Albert Bierstadt's wildly Romantic A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt Rosalie, 1866.

I admired this smartly turned-out lady amongst some paintings by Nineteenth Century women artists.

The striking portrait above is Jane E. Barlett's portrait of the American actress Sarah Cowell, 1877.

Mary Cassatt's gorgeous Woman in a Red Bodice and Her Child, c1901.

Again there were lots of surprises like A Back Road, 1884, by Frederick Childe Hassan

and this lovely impressionistic study by John Singer Sargent of his sister, Viola Fishing, 1889.

John was taken by William Sidney Mount's Caught Napping, 1847.

Caught Napping (detail)

He also was amused by the surly kitten in Daniel Huntington's family portrait, Ellen Almira Low and Her Three Children (detail), 1847.

Some grand 18th century American women. The two on the left are by John Singleton Copley.

How about this thoroughly modern young woman admiring a model of a Haida longhouse? Both John and I were much impressed with the long-limbed girls of New York City. Are they ALL models?!

Down on the main floor of the museum, John caught this detail of an exhausted worker/student in Vida Pushkarova's Social Realist Two Ivans and Oksana, 1964.

On the ground floor the mix of art forms continued with a fine mix of artwork of various cultures in the Connecting Cultures exhibit.

This is Nick Cave's wonderful Soundsuit, 2010, sculpture/costume made of dogwood twigs, wire, upholstery and a basket. I'd love to see it in action.

Let's leave our short visit to the Brooklyn Museum with this elegant Cambodian sculpture, Torso of a Male Divinity, c 1010-1080.