I visited the museum the other day with my six year old daughter. It's been a few years since I've been there and this was her first trip. She enjoyed it very much and during the course of the visit these are some of the things I noticed.
First, the paintings that made the biggest impression on me were the ones I didn't like. Electric by Edward Ruscha and Red Yellow Blue Painting by James S. Ely Fund just don't seem like great works of art. They look like something I could do and I'm not any artist. Carcass of Beef by Chaim Soutine looks like it required a great deal of skill to paint but I thought it was a disturbing topic to depict.
Three works that I really found interesting were The Cone by Alexander Calder, Urban Landscape Buffalo by Zhan Wang and, I know we saw this in class already, Wall Drawing #1268 by Sol Lewitt. I couldn't tell you exactly why I liked The Cone other than it made me smile when I looked at it. The Urban Landscape sculpture is strange in the way it uses pots and pans and other household items to form a landscape. It makes quite an impression as you enter the room and see this huge splash of silver covering the most of the floor throughout the room. I know we already saw the wall doodle by Sol Lewitt but I think you can't get the scope of the project until you see it first hand. Its quite impressive up close. I particularly liked the little electric warning voice telling me to stay away from the wall over and over.
The last three paintings I let my daughter choose. I told her to find three that she really liked and she chose Tow-Path at Argenteuil by Claude Monet, Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks and Winter by Emile Pierre Branchard. I think she did a good job. I liked these as well. I wish I could go into more depth about what I find appealing about these but all I can say is they have very nice eye appeal and are soothing to look at.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteThat is so great that you took your daughter to see the gallery! I am sure she had a great time.
I like that you took your own pictures... I wasn't sure if I was allowed so I tried to just find them online when I got home and it was hard to locate some of them!
I agree that the artworks that made the most impact on me were the ones that were most disturbing. For me, I found the "Ten Formal Fingers" a little unsettling!
Wasn't it so great to finally see the wall scribble? I almost forgot that it was going to be there, and I was so excited when I remembered! I think it made it that much more special because we learned about it beforehand.