I love art galleries. I find them inspiring. When I travel abroad I make sure that I go to one, two, three local galleries displaying local work. Or National Galleries, displaying local work from a vast array of history. I love watching time change with the styles and techniques - the adoption of breezy paint-strokes in the impressionists and the precise darkness of baroque religious art. The use of computers in modern-day sculture, precision and anti-precision. The works of Michelangelo and Matisse.
Art galleries allow you to see the despair of man, mixed with the joy of humanity - the perfect place to gander, be inspired, and imagine what made the artist make what you see and how it is possibly making you feel what it is you are feeling.
I love art galleries because you never leave one thinking the same way as you did when you walk in. Instead you come out and start seeing the world in the lines and details of the artist that most impressed you - trying to view the world as they do, hoping that maybe you could make something so incredible in your mind as you saw inside those four walls.
I have a confession to make, Neal.
ReplyDeleteWhen Chris and I went to Paris, and we visited the Louvre, I couldn't wait to leave it. I became utterly bored with what I saw. Maybe it was overkill, because there was so much to look at. But, after a while, I couldn't look anymore. I needed to get out and explore the streets of Paris instead.
Oh, well, that's just me. I bet you would love the Louvre. The building itself fascinated me so much more than the contents.
Like I said, that's just me.
Weird.
ReplyDeleteMy only experience even remotely comparable to the Louvre is the Vatican Museum in Rome - which is much more of a museum than an art gallery in presentation but much more an art gallery than museum in content.
And I never wanted to leave. So much history (perhaps I should've included this particularly fascinating aspect of art) was in the tapestries and the paintings and the sculpture work. I could've done without the Michelangelo room and it still would've been the highlight of my trip.
But I can also understand the overload aspect. Sometimes too much of something can just be too much. When I was in Norway I felt that a bit - some great paintings, and spectacular in detail, but occassionally too familiar to the piece beside it.