Pop culture is filled with references to great works of art, but we rarely stop to consider the source.
Though we can immediately conjure up a picture in our minds of the Mona Lisa, and probably own a calendar
with Monet's Water Lilies, wouldn't it be thrilling to see the original? Check out these sites: you'll
save yourself a plane ticket and you may find that some of them are closer than you think.
"Mona Lisa" - Leonardo da Vinci
One of the most famous paintings of all time, this mysteriously smiling woman lives at
The Louvre. The
"Mona Lisa" is one of many classic
Italian Renaissance paintings housed at The Louvre.
"Water Lilies" - Claude Monet
"A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" - Georges Seurat
"The Thinker" - Auguste Rodin
"Starry Night" - Vincent Van Gogh
The painting that inspired Don McLean's
hit song "Vincent" lives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
If you're visiting the real museum, you'll also find Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World".
"Whistler's Mother" - James McNeill Whistler
You'll have to travel to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris to see this painting.
We all studied the Revolutionary War and the Civil War in school, but seeing an actual historical artifact
can bring a whole new excitement to the names and dates. The National Archives
houses many of these documents, such as the
Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution and the
Bill of Rights.
The National Archives offers digital images of artifacts with the
American Originals site.
Over the years, the exhibit has featured the police blotter listing Abraham Lincoln's assassination,
the first report of the Titanic's collision with an iceberg, Rosa Parks's arrest records,
The Emancipation Proclamation and Thomas A. Edison's Patent Application for an Incandescent Light Bulb.
At the Chicago Historical Society, you'll find the bed
upon which Abraham Lincoln died, as well as a cloak that is alleged to be the one worn by Mary Todd
Lincoln on the night of her husband's assassination.
If you're wondering where you can view the Shroud of Turin,
don't book your tickets to Turin, Italy, yet. The shroud is stored in a chapel behind the altar
in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (erected specifically to house the Shroud), but the
next public exhibition will not occur until the next Holy Year, in 2025.
--- J. Walker
View more articles, exhibits, questions or trivia.
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