Now the following pictures I consider to be fine art material to be in an art museum. My five or nine year old could not paint these as opposed to the one above. Well, Alexis might come close.
These are some of Georgia O'Keefe's paintings. I really like her flowers and landscape pictures. She is also Alexis' favorite artist right now.
This just looks cool.
Another Georgia O'Keefe.
I find this so very cool. I love blown glass. It is so pretty.
Amy and I took Alexis, Audrey, and Megan with us to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Wednesday. It was a free day and I am sooo glad that I didn't pay to get in. I really like paintings more than modern art. I felt like there was a lot of modern art and it's just not my thing. For instance, there was a statue of a very voluptuous woman as you walk towards the entrance. Audrey took an immediate dislike to it, bless that child! The first time we passed it the girls snickered and when Audrey saw the HUGE backside she looked disgusted and said, "I don't like that bum!" We actually passed this statue three times and every time we passed it Audrey closed her eyes and said, "Tell me when we're passed that statue so I can open my eyes again." I'm right there with you child!
We went into the "special" exhibit which wasn't my favorite either. I also don't like portrait paintings very much either (I know, aren't I picky?). But as you turn the corner one of the first paintings you see is of a woman with her breasts hanging out. So ugly. All three girls mouths were gaping open. Audrey said (she is never afraid to share her opinion) "She is so immodest!" I told them all to close their eyes as they walked past it. Seriously, I don't understand that kind of painting. It is not attractive to me at all and I was just as disgusted as Audrey was. It's times like those that I love having an unabashed five year old who will say out loud what I am thinking!
11 comments:
I agree with your critic of the first "paintings". Art exhibits always have to have nudity don't they. Why is that considered art?
Thanks for your very frank opinions about the Milwaukee Art Museum. Most artists feel that the value in art is obvious. It is good to have an honest view of what people without an art education really think. A link to your blog has been circulated through the art community via MARN, Milwaukee Artist Resource Network. Please continue to write your reviews. They help artists understand the community better.
Ah, the wonderful world of art -- at least the "primary colors" one you could do at home by yourself. I like Georgia O'Keefe, too, but she's got some nudie paintings, too! I guess there is something fundamental to art that makes artists want to master the human shape -- . ? Don't ask me why clothes aren't necessary.
I was formally trained in art and most of my classes had a portion of nude drawing/painting/sculputure where we would use the appropriate medium and rough out the human form in all of its immodest beauty.
The first time I walked into a nude drawing class I felt like sniggering or burying my head in the sand...or doing something. But after only a few hours of that first class, I was hooked. There is something remarkable about recreating the human body in art--without having to worry about the folds and burrows and seems of clothing. There's something about it that makes me feel a small bit closer to god.
I have never left a drawing class in a sexual fever, nor have I felt that there was any demeaning characterization taking place. For most artists, it is a sincere grasp at producing the forms that we know the best, yet have seemingly infinite variations.
And there is a feeling of immense satisfaction being able to recreate roundness, or redness, or fatness, or boniness with just strokes on a paper, or manipulating clay as though you were moulding an actual living being.
I used to laugh at my grandfather's books of nude art when I was a child. I admit I probably felt like laughing or perhaps even being ill before I had ever tried (and surprisingly failed so many times) to recreate the very thing which I see in all of its naked glory, every day.
I have three children as well. With a bit of a historical narrative, many more of the works in the museum not only make more sense, but I realize their extraordinary value in the collection.
I do disagree with you that this museum isn't worthwhile. Because I am currently an artist who works with nude models on a regular basis, my children have all seen, and appreciate, the sketches, sculpture, and paintings that they see regularly. As a result, all three of my children can tell you as much about Chihouli as they could about Williamson or O'Keefe, or Warhol.
I must agree, however, that the museum simply doesn't quite understand the variety of levels of artistry and should do a better job of explaining the context.
We have a family membership and we take the children on the weekends to experience art (for free) in their art studio and we take many of their free classes geared to teaching children about the art in the exhibit and the historical narrative behind it. Perhaps if you were to take the art in small pieces rather than in one big gulp, you might find it more manageable and far more interesting. We usually get visual overload after only two or three rooms.
Anyway, I wish you a better time next time you visit the museum (if you ever decide to return!) and I just wanted to tell you that your daughters are darling!
Sincerely,
Maggie (Homeschooling-mom-of-two-boys-and-a-girl)
I left an earlier comment and I'd like to take it back. I think it is great that you take your kids to the museum. I don't think very many parents do. Also, encouraging them to have an opinion regardless of the "sanctity" of the museum is really terrific. I wish I had had a mom as good as you.
Dear Emily,
Thank you for visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum with your daughters. We treasure family visits like yours. Unlike other museums in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Art Museum offers free admission for children under 12 during all of our visitor hours, every day we’re open, in addition to our free Wednesdays for all residents of Milwaukee County.
We also offer activities every weekend for families that are free with Museum admission. Saturdays feature Family Time in the Galleries from 1–3 p.m., and on Sundays from 10–4 we host Open Studio, where kids can create their own masterpieces to take home, based on some of ours. On Sunday, April 19, we will open our Kohl’s Education studio where you and your children can, at no charge, make and take your own artworks. You can read about upcoming family programs at www.mam.org/calendar
I noticed that you opened your post with a photo of Ellsworth Kelly’s Red, Yellow, Blue II (1965), and mentioned that your five- and nine-year-old kids could paint it. The Museum’s Chief Educator Barbara Brown Lee has been working at the Milwaukee Art Museum for 46 years, and she’s heard this one a few times before! In fact, Barbara created a very nice gallery talk on the topic. If you’d like to see it, it’s featured in our video podcast series, Art Lives Here with Barbara Brown Lee, available at http://www.mam.org/learn/podcasts.php
Judging by your photos and all of the quotes, it looks like your children not only had fun at the Museum, but they also exercised genuine creativity in responding to the work on view. We’re also thankful that five year-olds will say out loud what adults are thinking, and we’re so happy that we have an environment here where they are free to do just that. Our Collection is wide ranging and has something for everyone. As budgets get tighter and tighter, the Museum is working harder than ever to be a place in the community where children can still exercise their creativity and be at home with art.
Thank you again for making the Museum a part of your family goings-on.
Regards, Elysia Borowy-Reeder
Senior Director of Communications
Milwaukee Art Museum
where are all the 'interesting' comments?? art (or beauty) is in the eye of the beholder. let's just admit, some people's beholding eye is messed up.
man, you've really locked down the comment section! :)
It looks like you are raising daughters with good taste!
Crap resistors of the world unite!
Now you have to blog about the going private story!
I am related to this Emily Thomas and Audrey the art critic, and I am pleased to be.
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