People laugh when I tell them my 4 year old son L-O-V-E-S going to The Art Institute. Honestly, he likes it more than I do. Until February of this year, I hadn't been there since about 1995. Bunch of paintings that I could see in pictures, and stuff I didn't understand. Not now though.
Thanks to "The Little Einsteins" (and if you have a preschooler, you've seen it), Nick is fully enthralled with (in no particular order) Monet, Cassatt, Seurat, Munch, Warhol, O'Keeffe, Van Gogh, Manet, Kandinsky, Klimt... and - unlike his mommy, he can tell the pictures apart. His favorite, by far, is a piece titled "The Great Wave off Kanigowa." Unfortunately, it an ancient Japanese print on paper, so it is rarely displayed. Too fragile. We've been to the AI twice, and so far, no luck.
We missed the huge Edvard Munch exhibit that just closed, and The Modern Wing isn't open yet. So what's a mom to do? Well, we just let the art take us where it would. Nick saw a sarcophagus, ancient mosaic, Grecian urns, Frank Lloyd Wright furniture and of course, his old favorites - the impressionists. We wandered through the Asian art and he was impressed with the Japanese prints on paper. After turning his head this way and that to view One Chinese monochromatic print (by Wong) he declared "It looks like thunder."
One well-meaning AI employee was trying to entice him into the African Tribal Gallery by telling him about a wooden figure of a man with nails stinking out of him. I thought he'd like the tribal masks, but as we began down the hall, I could feel the drag of a reluctant hand-holder. Looking back, I saw that the hand that wasn't holding mine was covering his eyes. When I asked what was up, he said he didn't WANT to see the man with nails in him. So we didn't. She meant well. I'm sure most 4 year old boys would want to see that. Nick just isn't most 4 year old boys.
After being perfectly well behaved (I told him we could never come to the Art Institute again if he didn't act nicely) in the Garden Restaurant - white table cloths and all - we stopped by one more set of rooms on the way out. It was there that he saw the piece that he now obsesses over. It's called "Spectrum" by an artist named Kelly.
When we came home, he instantly wanted to "make art." And if you ask me, art is precisely what was created in our house last night!
One well-meaning AI employee was trying to entice him into the African Tribal Gallery by telling him about a wooden figure of a man with nails stinking out of him. I thought he'd like the tribal masks, but as we began down the hall, I could feel the drag of a reluctant hand-holder. Looking back, I saw that the hand that wasn't holding mine was covering his eyes. When I asked what was up, he said he didn't WANT to see the man with nails in him. So we didn't. She meant well. I'm sure most 4 year old boys would want to see that. Nick just isn't most 4 year old boys.
After being perfectly well behaved (I told him we could never come to the Art Institute again if he didn't act nicely) in the Garden Restaurant - white table cloths and all - we stopped by one more set of rooms on the way out. It was there that he saw the piece that he now obsesses over. It's called "Spectrum" by an artist named Kelly.
When we came home, he instantly wanted to "make art." And if you ask me, art is precisely what was created in our house last night!
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