I'm an Art-aholic

Since I've been out East, I've had the chance to attend many art museums and I've discovered... that I'm an art-aholic! So far my favorites have been the Metropolitan Museum of Art (top) and the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum (bottom).

Paintings just aren't the same in a textbook as they are in person. Sometimes the most important aspect of a piece of art is its actual physical size. Other times, the vividness of the colors does not hold in the reproduction. Mostly, there is something about looking at the actual canvas that Picaso, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, Raphael, Cassatt, or Degas painted that is thrilling.

I love impressionism. These paintings are meant to capture the impression of scenes and often portary everyday events or landscapes. The beauty of the brushstrokes and the capturing of the feeling of an event or scene can make me feel serene.

Back at BYU I went to a lecture on annunciation paintings and now I just love them. To illustrate this, at the Met in New York I specifically sought out an exhibit that I thought would have annunciation paintings. I walked through, enjoying the artwork but noticing the lack of annunciations. Then I turned a corner and **BAM** there was a wall-sized annunciation and I gasped! Audibly. The rest of the rooms of the exhibit had several annunciations and I took pictures of them so I could study and ponder them later. If you don't believe, see photo of the annunciation painting below. They are packed full of symbolism, which makes searching for symbols like an eye spy game, and I am impressed with some of the consistencies across the paintings. Ask me later if you want to hear more about my love for them.

But as you can see from the quizzical look below, I still have a hard time understanding modern and contemporary art. We thought this one (at the Musem of American Art) looked like a thought bubble. The plaque described it as an example of delicacy despite it's large size and some other stuff that I didn't buy. If anyone has any insights, feel free to share.

Yay art!