art

I'm proud of myself for, amid all the scattered wisps of things to keep track of in my addled brain this week, remembering to get to the Renwick Gallery to see Grant Wood's American Gothic in its last week here. I really need to get to Chicago and see its more permanent home there. Side story: My parents have a board game, "Masterpiece," which they were given by family friends who found it at a garage sale. My parents and they used to play it together, so it was a neat gift, since (I think) it's either no longer sold, or not sold in this edition. This particular one contains only art from the Art Institute of Chicago. So it's fun to get to see a painting from this game that we played a lot when I was a teen. And that's why I want to go see them all in Chicago someday. We gave some of them silly nicknames; I should probably learn their real names one day. "The gum-wrapper one" or "the clown with the backward butt" are probably less elegant than their actual titles.

I'm not terribly art educated, I'll admit. Art history is one of those areas, like, say, architecture, or other aspects of European history, that I wish I'd learned more about. I got snippets here and there in honors classes in college, and very little else. I hear my mother saying, "That (or not having been born yet -- another excuse she hates) is no excuse for not knowing something." And, it's true. There are so many books, classes, etc. out there ripe for the picking. But ... it takes an effort. And I'm lazy. That's all to say, I don't know nearly as much as I should about what I'm looking at when I see art. But I still like it. I like to look up close, at the paint strokes and the cracks in the paint, which sometimes causes a lot of alarm on the part of the security guards; then stand back, and take in what the painting looks like halfway, then all the way, across the room; then read the background info on what I'm looking at, and its importance in the scheme of the artist's life and the time in which it was created. Then analyze what catches my eye, or my brain, about the piece. What I find funny is (and here's where my lack of education becomes really apparent), I can rarely see what is so phenomenal about an artist's so-called greatest work. American Gothic is cool, and all, and I read for the first time about the significance of the house in the background, and the farmer's expression is somewhat comical, but -- like, say, the Mona Lisa -- taken out of context, looking at it from X number of years later, it's hard to know why it's better than any number of other paintings by that artist.

Let me emphasize that I've no doubt it IS the best of the guy's work. I guess. I'm not saying I know more than the art community. It's more of a comment on perspective than anything. I suppose some more art education would empower me a bit more to make up my own mind on what's the most special. And art is all about opinion, after all.

In any case, seeing art in person is always so much better than looking at a picture in a book. Walking five blocks to a museum to see a painting I've been hearing about for years reminds me of the reasons I have enjoyed being in D.C. Reminds me that my weekday routine doesn't have to be exactly the same. There's more to see and do, if only I take a minute to remember it and rise from my chair occasionally.