The Getty Villa in Los Angeles


I'm finally back on my feet and once again enjoying the glorious blue skies we've been having here in Tokyo. This great weather also reminds me of California and how I need to get all my posts up. So here we go.

One of the things I love about my friend R is his sense of adventure. It was his idea for us to go to The Getty Villa, which I'd never heard of before. When I asked him what was there, his answer was "I don't know, we'll find out when we get there!" How 'bout that?

Well, what we found was an amazing museum!

The Getty Villa was originally the home of J. Paul Getty, a very rich industrialist. He was a collector of art and antiques and in 1954, he opened part of his home as a private museum. As collections tend to be, it grew. So he built a separate museum on his 64-acre property and it officially opened to the public in 1974. But Mr. Getty, who had moved to England in the 50s, never had the chance to visit the museum for himself before passing away in 1976.

In 1997 the museum closed for renovations and reopened in 2006 as a museum and educational center dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. That means that The Getty Villa provides a variety of lectures, performances, and tours, which we definitely took advantage of. We were just in time to take the last tour of the day, and we chose (or I chose...hehe) the architecture tour. Our guide taught us about the history of the museum architecture, which was designed after a first century Roman country house, and how the ancient Romans used to live.

I personally am not a big art person. I'm the girl that goes to art galleries and thinks, what is that? Or, I could probably make that. Or even ignoring the art and think, ooh the wood floor here is gorgeous.  (I know, I'm an idiot.) But when you have a tour guide explaining the meaning and history of the art piece, it suddenly becomes part of a story and I am fascinated. I loved the tour and I'm really glad we we got to visit The Getty Villa.

Here are some photos:

The Getty Villa is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust.

I love the bold colors. This was the entrance of the museum and the start of the tour.

The colorfully decorated ceiling of the gallery inside the Villa.

Various busts placed around the gallery.

I felt like my skirt matched the floor a bit.

The central courtyard, which I think was my favorite part of the museum.

We were given earpieces so we could hear the tour guide speaking while we walked around. 

Even if you don't take a tour, you can read the information displayed about each piece like this.

The statues of women with the slightly creepy eyes made from stone and glass.

These statues were replicas of statues found in Villa dei Papiri.

We learned that Greeks and Romans were all about symmetry.

R and his sister S, who also lives in LA :D

The details in the design were mind blowing.

The art pieces were displayed in various places around the villa, this was my favorite.

The marble floor with the intricate design.

There were a lot of different plants throughout the whole estate.

Don't worry we were still listening to the tour while we took a selfie!

A statue of a man enjoying laying out under the sun...he was beautifully naked.

The main courtyard had a long reflecting pool.

The windows along the courtyard all had different designs. Again, so much detail.

Even the fountains were fancy with faces of people or animals shooting water from their mouths.

Subtle hints of fall in the garden grape vines.

Another quirky fountain...don't you love it?

It really was a beautiful day to take the architectural tour with these two!

Crushing hard on California with all its beauty. x

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