TACKLING THE #1 MUSEUM IN THE WORLD

TripAdvisor's Travelers' Choice Award deemed Chicago's Art Institute the #1 museum in the world in 2014.

Have you ever noticed just how exhilarating and exhausting a museum visit?  Try tackling the #1 museum in the world!
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It was like three hours of therapy with a psychiatrist (or so I’ve heard).  I emerged from Chicago’s imposing neoclassical Art Institute at the end of a long afternoon feeling spent and hungry; my head and heart were spinning like a load of laundry going through a second rinse cycle before being hung out to dry.  

Yes, that’s what 300,000 pieces of art – paintings, sculptures, photographs, sketches, pottery, and textiles – wrapped up in a million square feet of real estate will do to you.  All that passion offered a world of introspection, not to mention considerable wonder, awe, and appreciation for 5,000 years of human artistic creation.  Isn't humanity amazing!

Group therapy works, too.

And like therapy (or so I’ve heard) that introspection is best tackled in bits and pieces.

Renoir's "Young Woman Sewing, 1879."

Van Gogh's "A Pheasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage, 1885."

And so we (me, Jimmy, and travel buddies Joan and Jerry) began with the Impressionists.  Because the Art Institute of Chicago houses one of the largest and most significant collections of Impressionistic and Post-Impressionistic art in the world.  Because what’s not to like about trend setting artists.  Because I'm a big fan of the ephemeral quality of an ordinary moment captured via thousands upon thousands of luminous strokes of paint.

Monet's "Waterloo Bridge, Gray Weather, 1900."

Monet's "Water Lilies, 1906."

I'm also a big fan when it comes to landscapes imbued with so much magic it touches your soul; magic too often lost to the casual observer. 

True to museum info online, afternoons Monday through Thursday usually mean fewer crowds.

Lost was the operative word when it came to a million square feet of real estate.  We lost track of time and place, eventually simply allowing the maze of quiet rooms to transport us to the next collection; 

I'm still lost. Not sure which collection we wandered into in this image.

and the next;

Jimmy, Joan and Jerry playing pinball as they bounced through the first floor Sculpture Court.

and the next.   

A much larger version of Calder's, "Flamingo" graces the plaza outside Chicago's Kluczynsk Federal Building.

And still there was more to see;  

Geogia O'Keefe's, "Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965."

and more, 

Time out for Jimmy, no doubt a familiar activity from days gone by.

until we were bug-eyed, bleary-eyed, and beleaguered. 

I have a number of Midwest friends who resemble Grant Wood's, "American Gothic, 1930."

You might remember Seurat's, "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884" from the movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

We’d covered all we could manage, from American Gothic to French Pointillism;

I think I might have spent a late night or two at Edward Hopper's iconic "Nighthawks" diner.

"Trinity, 1941," by Charles Howard.

From iconic to abstract;

A new favorite, "The Traveler, 1890" by Jacques-Emile Blanche.

Ivan Albright's, "Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943-44" was a telling commentary on hedonism.

from hauntingly beautiful, to simply haunting; 

A Japanese Buddhist monk's garment, called kesa.

German fluted 16th century armor worn by knights.

with a fair amount of art falling somewhere in between the aforementioned extremes.  ​Still, I think we missed more than we got to see.  Have to save something for next time.  

You're welcome, CAI.

For sure, it was work taking on the #1 museum in the world; enjoyable, enlightening work that left us hungry at the end of the day (they kicked us out at 5 when the museum closed) for something more than soul food.   

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