A Trip To Philadelphia

In April we took a short trip to Philadelphia to visit with my family.

We took Amtrak, and in the morning it was a rather dark and stormy looking day.  As you approach Philadelphia, you see a lot of evidence of the decline of American industry.   The empty factories and decaying landscape were rendered even darker by the weather.  
Taken from the train window:

Arrival in Philadelphia, though, is at the wonderful Philadelphia train station, which has been well taken care of and is only marred by a few advertising banners.   It's such a beautiful station that you don't even mind that much when your return train is an hour late leaving.

We all went together to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.   It is a truly wonderful museum, with a world culture spanning collection that rivals that of the Met.  And, it is particularly strong in European painting.   It has Cezanne's masterwork  "The Large Bathers", and quite an amazing collection of medieval and renaissance Italian art.   The building itself has the most magnificent location of any urban museum I can think of in the US.
The sun illuminates the colorful stones of the exterior of the building:

Cezanne:

Detail:

A few early Renaissance Italian paintings:

There was also an interesting show of American prints.   This one made me think of the landscapes I had just seen from the train.

And a print by Sue Fuller of New York, made in 1950, in case I was feeling homesick.

After a few hours, I was art saturated, though we had barely touched the surface of what is to be seen in the museum.   People who live in Philadelphia are very lucky to have this museum.  Newer cities like Vancouver, although they may be thought of as more prosperous, have nothing like this.