TashJGirl

I’ve been wanting to check out the museum’s new exhibit for quite some time, and today I went with 2 of my girl friends.  The exhibit was displaying Jan Lievens’ work.  I’ve seen other painings in this style (by van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Rubens) so I knew I’d like the artwork at least to some degree.  I have to say I liked it quite a bit.

To me, this is art.  It was beautiful, it required quite a bit of skill as well as tallent and training.  The people in the paintings seems to be alive, like they’d just walk off the frame and shake your hand.  The eyes in the portraits look alive and intelligent.  The objects in still life paintings (Stil life with books – this one was my favorite, I think) look so real you can touch them.  That pitcher, the highlights, and the books.  The books look so real that I can almost smell the dust and the leather of the binding.  You can almost feel the grime on the musical instrument that’s in the background.

I was completely shocked at how he depicted cloth.  In one painting, Profile of an old woman, the gauzy head covering is stunningly painted.  You can see how the organza folds and the shimmer and gold highlights.  In another painting, he shows his mastery by painting silk in such a way that makes it glow.

We took our time at the exhibit and walked through it slowly, savoring the experience.

After this, we deicded to visit the rest of the museum and see what’s there.  I haven’t been to the museum for a few years, so it was nice to see what else they had.  I didn’t enjoy the rest of the museum as I enjoyed the Lievens’ exhibit.  Let’s just say that my idea of art and many people’s idea of art varies wildly.  Some things look more like an engineering braintease yet others are just canvases colored in a single color, and some are just like something a first-grader could paint.  I don’t know what it’s supposed to make me think other than I could have done the same and gotten paid a lot of money.  It doesn’t inspire me, it doesn’t make me think, it doesn’t uplift, and it looks like it takes no skill whatsoever.  If you painted a wall at any point in your life, you could have painted some of the things on the walls of the museum.  But to some it’s art.  To me, it’s not.