A Trip to the Chrysler


I went to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk in response to an assignment for my art history course I am taking this semester and really had a great time, more fun than I have had in an art gallery in the past. I have recently become very interested in art since taking this course and since my last visit to Minneapolis, where fascinating and experimental art abounds, and I have found that my opinions of art and of the philosophy behind are beginning to change drastically.

The Chrysler is not a huge gallery, but it does have the advantage that it has a wide variety of samples from many times throughout the timeline of Western art history. As I walked the halls, I was able to see the evolution of artistic expression through time, from the religious sculptures of classical Rome, to the colorful oil paintings and woodcuts of the Renaissance, to vibrant splotches and lines of the modern expressionism and postmodern assemblage. In the past I really didn't realize that philosophy had a lot to do with art, but upon closer study it really has a lot to do with thought and ideology, making art that much more meaningful. For example, Andy Warhol didn't paint soup cans just because he considered it art, but he did also because "cultured" artists thought that it was too ordinary to be called art. In the postmodern world of Warhol, where art can be anything, a soup can, a Brillo pad, or a pink portrait of Marilyn Monroe could be art. Interestingly enough, many philosophical and worldview movements begin in the art world and move to popular culture. Maybe art effects us more than we originally thought.

Another thing that has been effecting my view of art is looking beyond and and before the work of art. When someone looks beyond the painting, he doesn't just look at what the art looks like, but looks for how colors are meant to communicate feeling, how shapes communicate emotion, and how placement puts emphasis on different things. When someone looks before the painting, she is making a point to realize that this piece of art began in mind of the artist, and that artist spent lots of intimate time with that work, trying to effectively communicate what he or she was trying to get across. When we realize that art is in a way an extension of the artist, it takes on a very different importance and a more personal element.

I really believe that art really does have a profound influence on our culture and really can challenge and test our views of the world as well, and if we are willing to spend time experiencing art, we really have the potential to stretch and test our own thinking.