Over the weekend, we pried open little Dylan's eyes to the great works of Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to name a few.
Saturday was "Day in the District" in Fort Worth, which means no museum admission fee in the area's Cultural District. Free means THRONGS of people like us show up (people with younger kids) and some not like us (older people who need a break from bridge club or singles who are not regular museum goers.) I would imagine your snooty art aficionado avoids equates this event to filet mignon with Mad Cow Disease.
The Kimbell Art Museum has a huge collection of Impressionist works on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago which it notes is "feast for the eyes" including "paintings so widely disseminated ... that they will be familiar even to those who have never visited the Art Institute."
In other words, perfect for those like me, who dropped Intro to Art in college, my husband, and our kindergartener.
With the help of children's books, Dylan and I are a bit familiar with van Gogh -- Dylan proclaims "The Bedroom" his favorite painting ever. There are actually three versions of this painting and one of the originals was on display at the museum -- a fact we promote with great gusto, on scale with the second coming of Christmas. That picture might as well be the biggest present under the tree topped off with rolls of cascading red ribbon.
(Photo from Kimbell Art Museum website -- work on loan from Art Institute of Chicago)
There are challenges even getting to van Gogh. Traffic is miserable, parking a nightmare -- We had to walk about 5 city blocks to finally get to the museum. Every few minutes is punctuated with Dylan hollering, "I'm HOT!" "I want to go home!"
The lone carrot we could hold out was "The Bedroom."
We finally arrive -- I guess I should have worn my running shoes -- we race through about 50 works of art in world record pace. My husband Tim spies "The Bedroom" first. We direct Dylan to it and he spent minutes drinking it in, absorbing its colors allowing his brain to feel at rest... NOT!
About 11 seconds elapse and he says, "OK, let's go home!"
To him, this painting was no different than what he had seen countless times in his books and in the flyer we received promoting this exhibit. The idea that this was THE BEDROOM -- THE ORIGINAL-- was completely lost on him. I might as well have been speaking French. He actually seemed more absorbed in Lautrec's view of night life and the scandalous singer shown in the front of the "At the Moulin Rouge."
(Photo from Kimbell Art Museum website, work on loan from Art Institute of Chicago)
I'm not sure if I should be impressed or disturbed by this fact.
So maybe next year, we'll try again, when it's free. In the meantime, back to the proverbial drawing board...