Harmony and equilibrium...

Nature is as arousing as a lover, as caring as a mother. She shows that beauty is everywhere and in everything. She is just as beautiful at dawn, at noon and in the evening because she incarnates harmony and equilibrium, in one word, she is life.
~ Auguste Rodin

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Today’s photo on Eric Tenin’s Paris Daily Photo blog features the Rodin Museum in Paris.

It brought to mind the Maryhill Museum, which has many of Rodin’s works as part of their permanent collection, including a small statue of "The Thinker". The Maryhill Museum is in a chateau sitting on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River in Washington state. It was built by wealthy entrepreneur Samuel Hill in 1914 and named after his daughter, Mary. Through his friendship with Parisian Loie Fuller, a dancer with the Folies Bergere, he acquired original works by Rodin. He later added a group of Russian icon paintings, and personal articles belonging to Queen Marie of Romania, who visited Hill at the mansion. Just down the road from the museum is a replica of Stonehenge, which Hill built as a memorial to local soldiers killed during World War I.

The museum is not in a town or city; it sits there alone, like a crown atop the bluff. Unusual to find such a fine house in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps this coined the phrase, "What in Sam Hill is that?" :-)

http://www.parisdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/