The Art Institute of Chicago

The highlight of my trip to Chicago was the Art Institute of Chicago. It was honestly quite amazing. I’ve saw most of the Smithsonian Museums, but I missed the fine art museum. This was the first real world-class art museum that I’ve been to.

It was really cool to these masterpieces in the flesh. I've see many of these pictures in books, but they are really much more impressive to see them in their original scope.

I loved to see all the details close up; the intensity of the color and the variety of textures. The Jackson Pollock and Roy Lichtenstein pieces were cool, but they were quite underwhelming compared to Saint George Killing the Dragon by Bernat Martorell. I was never impressed by that in books, but seeing it close up, I was amazed. It had gold highlights embossed and it was just plain magnificent.

It was impressive to see so many works by Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Pollock, Cassat, Dali, and Rodin all in one place. My favorite, of course, was A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

But I must say that the is no way Ferris Bueller and his friends did so much in Chicago in one day. Let’s see, during the school day they crashed a fancy restaurant, went to a Cubs game, went to the Art Institute, saw a parade, drove home, hung out at the pool, and ran Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari in reverse all before his mom and dad got home from work. No way.

Today the kids got out their Masterpiece board game and we realized that all the art in that game is from this museum. Lisette is now very jealous and she told me I have to take her to a famous art museum.