Back on line for a few minutes today.
Last Thursday we went to the Art Institute of Chicago, a world class art museum. The much parodied American Gothic is there (you know, the old guy with the pitchfork standing next to his daughter in front of the farm house). So is Nighthawks by Edward Hopper (also often parodied). And A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. My girls recognized it because I have a coffee mug with it on it. There are a bunch by Georgia O'Keefe, Monet, Manet, Cassat, Sargent, Whistler, and on and on. I could spend an entire day there.
But I was glad we managed three hours with the kids.
Standing at a painting to take it in isn't exactly an everyday experience for most people now. We're accustomed to TV, to movies, to endlessly moving images. It's a rare thing to focus on a canvas and try to draw out the stories it conveys, try to uncover the intentions of the figures, their motivations, their feelings.
Even in a grand museum like the Art Institute it's hard to do. There is so much to see, it's hard to give attention to any one piece for more than a few moments. More often, people breeze in to see the big work (like the Seurat), take a cursory look at the smaller canvases that most any other museum would be proud to display with fanfare, and then it's off to the next important work.
Maybe someday I'll go back and spend the day taking in just a few of them. Try slowing down today to take in something that you normally pass by without noticing. What might you learn?
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1 comment:
I would love to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. My grandmother was an artist and attended school there. It would be great to wander around the same halls where she spent so much time. One of my favorite days of all time was spent all alone in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, where I could spend as much time as I wanted pausing at each picture, to appreciate the talent, and to feel the essence of each piece. Ah......
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