A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by: Seurat (1884-86)

Today was my chance to emulate Ferris Bueller. I had an AFTERNOON OFF and went to the Art Institute of Chicago! Although I was without a friend wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey, I did feel at home.

A few things came to my attention:

I remember seeing Seurat's mastery of Pointillism the last time I visited the museum. What was awe inspiring this time I viewed the masterpiece was to look at the way the crowd was interacting with the artwork. Many people were walking through the gallery to get a good picture, not an easy task when the picture dominates the room in which it was located. People did not seem to be looking at the picture to appreciate its beauty, rather they wanted to acknowledge they "saw it". This scene made me think about what my students and I discussed at the end of the AP Art History class this year. Do people look at artwork in museums because the artwork is famous or because they like the artwork? What I think I saw here today was adoration of a "celebrity" artwork.

The Art Institute has a large collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks. I was able to look with a discerning eye at the body of work and notice how the innovations of the era changed art. Not only were collapsible stools, portable easels and tubes of paint created at this time but also more pigments became available. The additional pigments available to the Impressionists allowed them to paint with a lighter color palette than those that came before them. The brighter colors appeared more full of life, how an out-of-doors scene should be. The crowd in the galleries also seemed a bit more jovial around the brighter artworks.

Watch Ferris Bueller and his friends in the museum.