Last February my boyfriend and I made a trip there specifically to see a Thomas Cole painting. He was taking an art appreciation class, had a paper to write, was required to make a trip to the museum during the course of the class and the month of February had free admission. Plus I got out of a day out of school to go :)
I had never heard of Thomas Cole or seen any of his paintings but there I was standing in front of Distant View of Niagara Falls. I remember being struck by the colors in his paintings. I loved the way he used them and how the seemed to move seamlessly into one another was breath taking. I also loved the way the falls seemed so big and the people so small. Getting as close as I could without the security guy yelling at me again (a problem I often run into when ever I go to the Art Institute), I was in awe at the simplicity and the accuracy of the tiny Native Americans on the cliff, looking over at the falls.
Close up of the Native Americans
Clara,
ReplyDeleteThanks for these images. The one with your boyfriend, I assume that is who the man is, and your narrative of going to the museum to look at the painting return my thinking to this recurring question about the differences between "in-person" and "on-line." This time, however, there is another layer of removal since what you went to see "in-person" was a representation of a place that you did not go.
LDL