Staring at People Makes Them Feel Weird and Other Lessons Learned in an Art Museum

Today I visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art with my mum and my brother. I’ve always liked art, but taking Fine Arts this semester has greatly changed my perspective on it...particularly modern art, which I still don’t like all that much, but now I at least understand that modern artists actually put meaning into their work whereas before I thought they were just dumb people with too much time on their hands.

I realized today that when I look at works of art, I start to view people in the same way I do the pieces in front of me. Why do people look the way they do? Why do they dress and arrange their hair the way they do? What does a person’s appearance say about the person them self to me? In what ways am I misinterpreting them? In what ways are my assumptions correct? I didn’t quite realize how much I was doing this until a curator (who happened to be one of the people I was viewing as art) stopped in midstride, said hi, and asked what was wrong. I was tempted to make something up and save what face I had left, but instead I just smiled and walked away without saying anything. No doubt they started having me watched on the security cameras.

Have you ever looked at a work of art and found yourself in it? I had only had it happen once with one of the pieces from Monet's Water Lilies Series(Which is coming to The Nelson in April...I am so excited!). It happened again today though withJohn Singer Sargent's Portrait of Mrs. Cecil Wade. I’m not really sure why I connected with it so much, but throughout the day I found myself going back to it over and over. I think part of it has to do with how strong and cool and collected she looks; as if nothing could ever disturb her repose or make her angry. I want to be her when I grow up. Oddly enough it happened a second time today with Childe Hassam's Sonata. It’s strange, because she’s holding a piece by Beethoven that I played my junior year of high school. I actually walked by this one because I was distracted by a Van Gogh across the room, but my mum and brother made me go back to it later. It’s funny because I’ve sat in front of a piano in the exact same way. I know the exhaustion and satisfaction she simultaneously feels.

Also, I realized today that I was born in the wrong century. My mum concurs. I would have fit in better in nineteenth century England.