Something Lost... but Something Found

By Shellie Sands

Recently, I was thinking about a place I had visited some time ago, maybe in 2008.  It was Virtual Starry Night, a sim dedicated to the famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh. It was an amazing place and I remember wandering around in complete awe admiring the ingenuity of the creator. "Outside" Virtual Starry Night was a Van Gogh Museum. I visited the sim several times after my discovery and was just as delighted as I was on my first visit.

Finding my original landmark, I returned to the location.  Upon arriving, I found, much to my dismay, that all was gone.  Searching my inventory for anything Van Gogh, I found the original note I had received during my first visit.  I searched the names of the creators to ask why it was gone but found that they, too, were gone.  Just as in RL (and frankly more quickly), nothing lasts forever in SL.

In an effort to turn a negative into a positive, I searched Van Gogh in Places and got a decent list. One place caught my eye, Classic Paintings Art Gallery and Museum. It boasted paintings by all the great artists I knew of and some I never heard of.  I clicked on the teleport button.

Arriving at the gallery,  a long red carpet lay in front of me and I could see glimpses of paintings. Teleport buttons to the various areas of the museum were lined up at the entrance, listing artwork from the 15th through 20th centuries. Venturing forward, I encountered two rooms on the ground floor, each containing various artists, including Monet, daVinci, Klimt, Degas and Renoir in the room to the left; Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Michealangelo's Adam (a portion of the Sistine Chapel), among others, in the room to the right.  Just down the hallway is a room devoted to Botticelli and across from that a room filled with El Greco. At the end of the hallway is a large room dedicated to the great Michelangelo. Paintings by various artists line the hallway walls.The other floors yield artists such as Goya, Friedrich, Gauguin, Monet, van Gogh and Botticelli. 

This is just a small sampling of the many artists ranging from the Renaissance period up through later centuries. I found many of my personal favorites and purchased van Gogh's 'The Cornfield,' Botticelli's 'The Birth of Venus' and Fra Angelico's 'The Annunciation.' All paintings are reasonably priced at $L95.  If it's classic painting you fancy, this is a must see.