To the Art Museum We Go

The girls and I took our second field trip today and had a great time. I invited Cliff's mom to come (she DID!), and we had Emma Grace's friend Rachel with us as well (she is homeschooled, her mom had a meeting, and her child care fell through). We arrived shortly after the museum opened at 10am.

We are currently studying ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt in our history course, so I thought it would be interesting to see the Antiquities exhibit. Even though we are not as far along as I hoped we would be, I decided to go ahead with the trip to see what the girls noticed about the artwork with no knowledge about the culture. I was impressed with some of their observations.

The Antiquities exhibit is small -- probably less than 50 pieces of all sizes. There is a variety of sculpture, pottery, jewelry, etc. Good pieces for our purposes. We plan to go back after we have completed more study to look more closely at the hieroglyphics, gods and goddesses, and unique styles. The girls recognized hieroglyphic writing and the different style between the Egyptian sculpture and the Greco/Roman style.

We are also doing an art class and will soon start lessons on landscape art. The museum currently has a nice exhibit of Courbet landscape paintings from the mid to late 1800s. So we did a "preview" of our upcoming lessons. The girls seemed impressed with the paintings. I asked them to take some time and look around one room. About a minute later they were back (ha!), and I asked them which painting was their favorite and why. Emma Grace liked any painting with animals in it. Vivian liked those, too, but she also looked past the animals and chose some in which he captured movement (of water or clouds) and light/dark drama (shadow or clouds). I was struck by the variety of technique. One piece in particular was breathtaking from a distance and yet up close it looked like "scribble-scrabble." In a video in the exhibit his technique was shown where he layered paint onto the canvas with a spatula-like instrument then placed a piece of brown paper over the paint and lifted it to reveal a frothy look and a textured finish. Fascinating!!

Also in Art, we made prints this week by painting on a cookie sheet and then pressing paper onto the paint. We have also talked about different kinds of lines and how they can be literal lines or imaginary lines made by figures in a painting or drawing. At the museum we saw an exhibit of prints from Europe. Rachel and Emma Grace ignored them and sat on the bench in the room. Vivian started there but got up and looked at several. I joined her and told her that all of the pictures were made from small lines carved or etched into either wood or metal. She looked closely and was impressed that she could see the little lines.

Although I hadn't planned it, we also saw a quilt exhibit. The girls were really interested in the quilts. We didn't talk much about how they are made or who made them, but they definitely appreciated the work. At the end of the exhibit (it may have been the beginning, but it was the end for us) we got to make our own "quilts" using tag board and colored tape. It was a good lesson in planning, color combinations, and patience. In all we spent less than 2 hours at the museum which in my estimation was just right. We ate our picnic lunch at Hermann Park and were home early in the afternoon.

I can't say enough about how fun this was! Christine was a joy to have along, and I think she actually had fun, too. The girls clearly enjoyed the outing. It is difficult to explain, but I think this is the most joy I've felt during a family outing in . . . maybe ever. I wasn't stressed. I had a plan, but it was flexible. The girls cooperated (mostly). GREAT day!