Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan

The Teaching Garden at Weihenstephan is part of the University of Applied Sciences.
It is located in Freising just north of Munich.
Below are photos of the Rock Garden and Peony area.
These gardeners are serious!

Staudenwiese/Shrub Meadow

This relatively new planting relies on a pumice like mulch of lightweight gravel to control weeds.  

Freising Dom Cathedral

Munich Echoes of the Past

The Palace of Justice

Munich Pinakoteka der Moderne

 The work by Oskar Schlemmer to the left seems to echo the layout of the museum, below, which has a diagonal split between the modern art and contemporary art.

 Franz Radziwill, Polder Road to Varel Harbour, 1938
Radziwill had previously done much more abstract work but changed to a more realistic style when threatened by the Nazis.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alpine Huts and the Tinzenhorn, 1919

Franz Marc, Fighting Forms, 1914

Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern

"Throughout his life, Paul Klee cultivated relationships with a multitude of artist friends.  These reciprocal encounters made their mark on the artists' thoughts and work in a variety of ways...  Their paths crossed with that of Klee and their friendships were defined by both individual destiny as well as political changes.
Since 1906, Klee had been living in the Munich artists' quarter of Schwabing.  After years of working in isolation, 1912 became a key year for Klee's integration in the art world.  While visiting his boyhood friend Louis Moilliet in Gunten on Lake Thun the previous summer in 1911, Klee had already made the acquaintance of August Macke.  In April 1914, the three artists made a study trip to Tunisia, which represents a milestone in Klee's artistic development.  When the First World War broke out a few months later, Macke was drafted.  He fell in battle the same year.  For years, Klee had lived in close proximity to Wassily Kandinsky in Munich.  But it was not until October 1911 that he finally met Kandinsky - also through Louis Moilliet.  This new acquaintance eventually led to Klee's participation in the Second Exhibition of the Editors of the Blue Rider as well to meeting Franz Mark.  Letters and postcards testify to their deep, affectionate bond, which came to an end with Marc's early death on the battlefield in 1916.  Kandinsky, however, had to leave the country when the war began in 1914 because he was a Russian national.  He reconnected with Klee at the Bauhaus in 1922 and 1925, the old friends lived next door to each other at the Masters' Houses in Dessau.  The Munich circle also included the Russians Alexej Jawlensky and Marianne Werefkin.  The Klee met them during that fateful year of 1912 as well.  They were often guests at Jawlensky and Werefkin's 'Pink Salon,' in which they regularly hosted soirees with music and discussion.
Franz Marc facilitated Klee's meeting with Sonia and Robert Delaunay in Paris in April 1912.  In Delaunay's studio, he discovered the abstract color compositions of Orphic Cubism.  Hans Arp met Klee in the summer of 1912 they visited each other in Bern and Weggis.  Their works were on display in the second exhibition of the Moderne Bund in Zurich, about which Klee wrote a review in the journal Die Alpen.  Klee first discovered the work of Pablo Picasso in 1912 at exhibitions in Munich as well as in the Parisian art galleries.  
In 1933, Klee called on Picasso in his Paris studio, and Picasso returned the visit in 1937when he traveled to Klee's home in Bern.  Although they had different personalities, there are significant points of overlap between their work.
The multitude of relationships that Klee cultivated throughout his life show Klee's engagement with the work of others which span the movements of Expressionism and Surrealism, Cubism and Concrete Art and were important for his artistic development."

Some Paul Klee Paintings

Landschaft bei E (in Bayern)/Landscape near E. (in Bavaria), 1921

Himmelszeichen über dem Feld/Celestial Signs over the Field, 1924

Abfahrt der Schiffe/Departure of the Ships, 1927

Die Erfindung/The Invention, 1934

leidende Frucht/Suffering Fruit, 1934

Bern, Switzerland Colors: Green and Purple

The older buildings in Bern are constructed of a stone that ages green.

We happened to be  there on Friday 14 June, 2019:  the day of the Women's March.

Lugano Scenes, June 2019

New cable car to easily go  from train station down to commercial center near the lake.

An eerie crowd of convention arrivals, all with black T shirts and rolling suitcases.

Lugano Old and New

The photo below shows an abandoned elevator car from  about 1890, used to get down to the  lake from the street to the train station.  It was simply left and abandoned.  To the right are new condo apartments.

The new LAC, Lugano Arts Center, was placed next to an old church and cloister.
Below, through the arcade of swanky shops, the inner courtyard of the abandoned cloister are visible.  

Swiss Masterworks from the Christoph Blocher Collection

 Following are some paintings from an exhibit in Lugano in June 2019 at the LAC or Lugano Arts Center.  The Christoph Blocher Collection was put together by Lydia Welti-Escher, depicted below.  Here is exhibit text describing who she was and what she did:

"Lydia Welti-Escher (1858-1891) grew up in the Villa Belvoir in Zurich.  The only surviving child of Alfred Escher (1819-1882) and his wife Augusta Uebel, Lydia grew up in an environment imbued with economics and politics.  Her father was not only the promoter of the Gotthard railway and founder of the 'Schweizerische Kreitanstalt' (today's Credit Suisse) but by far the most powerful politician-entrepreneur of his time.  In 1883 Lydia married Friedrich Emil Welti (1857-1940), the sone of the Federal councillor  with the same name, who went on to have a brilliant career as a result of the marriage.  It was through her husband that Lydia met the Bernese artist Karl Stauffer, and they fell in love.  In the late 1880's, the two lovers fled to Rome, where, at the instigation of her family, Lydia was forcibly interned in a psychiatric clinic, while Karl Stauffer was arrested on the charge of assault against a person of unsound mind.  When Lydia returned to Switzerland she accepted her husband's request for divorce ands ordered to pay her husband damages of 600,000 francs.  Never fully integrated into Zurich society, now outlawed as an adulteress, the former lady of Belvoir went into voluntary exile in French-speaking Switzerland.  In 1891, Lydia took her own life, like Stauffer did a few months earlier in prison.  Before this tragic act, she left her inheritance to the Swiss Confederation so that it would fund the Gottfried Keller Foundation that she had set up.  Lydia wrote:  "This Decision was born out of my desire to be useful to the country in a field, the care of which is well suited to awake and cultivate a sense of beauty and nobility."

The Paintings in the exhibition, and those shown here, are all Swiss artists.

  Triptych to the right are by Giovanni Segantini, 1896.
Termed 'The Alpine Triptych:
Life








Nature

 Death

Felix Valloton, Still Life, 1914

Ferdinand Hodler, Lake Geneva in the Evening, 1895

Day 1 Start of Hike from Bioggio

The next 20 'chapters' are highlights from a 7 day hike from June 15 to 21.
It was a 100 kilometer hike in the 'Pre Alps' north of Lugano, Switzerland with an average of about 15 kilometers and 700 meters up and down per day.
We stayed generally in capanna/cabin/huts which have dormitory beds and serve food.

The first day we took local transport from Lugano to the outlying town of Bioggio and hiked from there to a B and B in Breno at 800 meter elevation northwest of Lugano.
Second day:  Breno up to the crest and north around Mt Tamaro to Capanna Tamaro
Third day:   Hike east down to valley north of Lugano and stay in a hotel  in Rivera.
Fourth day:  Take local transport from train station to trail at 700 meters, hike southeast past Gola di Lago & Croce della Motta, ending at Capanna Monte Bar.
Fifth day:  Hike south along ridge crest separating Switzerland and Italy, to Cap. San Lucio.
Sixth day:  Short hike south from Capanna San Lucio to Capanna Pairolo.
Seventh day:  Hike south west from Cap. Pairolo to San Vico, bus back to Lugano.






A local train from Lugano took 15 minutes to get to Bioggio, where we started the hike.
A dry laid stone wall had fascinating ferns and succulents.
Alan quickly hiked ahead.  The path was up almost all day, starting at 300 and ending at 800 meters.