Visiting Art Museums

In last week’s newsletter, my friend and KidsOutAndAbout.com publisher Debra Ross wrote about how to help kids enjoy art museums, sharing an article with Seven Tips for Visiting an Art Museum with Kids.

The trouble, for me, with reading an article like that on the morning of what everyone in my household calls “newsletter day” is that I am deeply, deeply enthusiastic about visiting art museums, and my children really like going to an art museum (you may remember all of those pictures of the girls discussing the art at my favorite, the Musee d’Orsay), and so I was fairly effervescing with additional ideas and points to add to that article. This is when I get what I call “a bee in my bonnet,” because I find it very difficult to do anything except write whatever has put me into such an agitated state (like postage stamps or crazy sports parents or stock photos). On newsletter days, though, I know that I’ll need to review and schedule 44 newsletters before I go to bed that night. In a situation like that, I will fill a Post-It note with bullet points on the prospective rant-essay in the hopes that it will act like a (metaphorical) blanket of smoke to calm the (metaphorical) bees.*

That’s what I did last Wednesday, in the hopes that I could discard the note later. Except then, as luck would have it, my whole family ended up going to an art museum over the weekend! Because it was my nephew’s birthday and one of his favorite things to do is to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And next thing you know, all the bees were buzzing again, especially after M and I witnessed a quick little scene of colossally bad parenting. I know, I know: I usually try not to be too judgmental about parenting choices, but in this case it was hard. M said, “I know he’s a terrible dad just from that one interaction.” It was a family of six, with the four kids ranging in age from about, hmmm, maybe from 1 year to 7 years, and all we heard is the dad saying to one of the two older boys, “That was a really stupid question. Don’t ask stupid questions, you’re annoying your mother,” and the mother didn’t respond at all, just pushed a stroller, and I swear, the youngest child, who was being worn in a carrier by her dad, was literally straining to get as far away from him as possible. Like, most typically little ones in a carrier are either quietly content or looking around. I expect that if this one had the language skills, she would have been saying, “Get me away from this @$$hole!”

M and I locked eyes with matching appalled expressions and immediately conferred with each other to confirm that we’d heard the dad correctly. The family, meanwhile, had moved on to another gallery. Shortly thereafter I heard the little one shriek and cry.

So, after witnessing that Walking Parenting Don’t, I couldn’t help noticing how things were going for the other parents, and honestly? There weren’t a ton of them at the museum.

Which is too bad, because the museum was awesome. It was our first visit, and there was tons of fun stuff. I like to take pictures of my favorite art at museums, and I thought I’d share a few of those pictures, along with the additional tips beyond Deb’s seven.

Deb’s first tip is to “enjoy art yourself,” and I gotta say, I’ve nailed this one. Deb and I have a bit of a yin-yang thing going. She’ll gush about math and statistics while I’ll gush about art history, she’ll help set up a kid business while I’ll take the kids camping, she can surf the vagaries of parenting theater kids while I can do the same for sporty kids. But in a case like the Philadelphia Museum, I’m mystified by how anyone could miss the sheer fun of the place!

Here’s an example:

And if you are in any way temped to yawn at this work, Heluo with Self-Portrait by Ai Weiwei, you cannot when you realize that it is entirely composed of LEGO bricks. Come to think of it, a particularly inspired parent could suggest that the whole family go home to replicate this by making their own self-portrait mythology mash-up (the Heluo fish is a creature from Chinese mythology) with household toys.

And then the very same dude has produced this pottery that puts together traditional techniques and motifs and scenes from mythology with contemporary scenes from the internet as social commentary. I mean, whhhhhaaaat?

And okay, I get it: the kids are probably more impressed with the LEGOs. But still.

Another thing I loved about this museum? There were big chunks of architecture throughout the galleries, so you were literally immersed in different spaces, like a Japanese teahouse or a Hindu temple, and many times, as you walked through doorways, they were framed by huge sculptural doorframes. It was super-cool.

Okay, back to the tips. Deb’s #3 is to get familiar with the artwork, and it’s absolutely true that people including kids are drawn to art that they’ve heard of or seen reproductions of before. I mean, think about all the crowds around the Mona Lisa at the Louvre: dude, I am sorry, but there are way cooler works of art than Mona in that place, and yet everyone flocks to see her.

In this case, I always love me some Monet, and I’m pretty sure I’ve hung a poster of Path on the Island of Saint Martin, Vétheuil, so that was a fun one to “meet” in person.

Another way to prepare kids in general, in a roundabout sort of way, is to have them help you curate your own collections. That might be going through all of their artwork from the school year and choosing your favorites to frame or keep. Or picking which photographs to include in a collage as a gift for someone. This gives them a little bit of insight into what it means to be a curator: choosing from different media, picking the best example from a certain subject, or striving for a variety of different subjects.

Another tip from me: book a tour. Sure, every once in a while you’ll get a dud, but most tour guides are extremely knowledgeable and engaging. I will always remember a tour that I went on at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, because I generally really don’t understand, and don’t particularly appreciate, modern art. I joke that Picasso loses me somewhere in his 20s. But on that trip, our guide was so informative that it was extremely impressive and enjoyable. One of the fun parts about our museum trip was that I was with my brother and sister-in-law, who are working artists and have a ton of insight into the more modern stuff. Although in this case, when I asked my brother to explain one particular piece, he said a few things and then something like, “But mostly, he takes a lot of acid. They don’t usually write about that on the placards.” Ha!

Upon arrival at the museum, get a museum map and let kids choose where they want to go. You may need to give them a little context, but your kids will have opinions, whether it’s mummies vs. sculptures at the Albany Institute of History & Art or armor vs. fashion at the Met. They’ll be more interested if they get to look at what interests them (duh), and it will help you to focus your energy.

Because another important part of visiting art museums is to understand your limits. Just as Deb advises to #5 Guard Against Hunger, you’ll need to reconcile yourself to the fact that you’ll probably get tired of looking at art before you run out of art. Incidentally, I am all for using the snack time as a time to refuel and take a nice rest. But if you’ll want to continue exploring the museum with kids after your food break, make sure to save something enticing enough to go back into the fray. Because when you’re tired and then have some food, sometimes you just want to follow it with a nap.

Deb’s tip is to #6 Find Friends in the artwork, but kids love a treasure hunt, and you can find all sorts of things in art. Maybe you’d like to hunt for as many different animals as you can find.

Here’s Mary Cassatt’s Lydia Seated in the Garden with a Dog on Her Lap.

Or you might look for common still life elements, like skulls or flowers or coins. A couple of other big winners with kids? Gore and nudity!

Do I sort of love this image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of students and scholars, serenely reading a book while appearing to stand on top of Emperor Maximus, who was responsible for her martyrdom? Why yes, I do!

Take that, pagan!

And of course it’s easy to find some nudity, but I really love this one, Children at the Seashore (The Young Amphibians) by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida:

I just love how wet the kids look, how the squishing fists in sand is so familiar, how the water and sunlight move. If the girls were younger, I would have asked them: why do you think the girl isn’t in the water? Why are the others naked and she’s fully dressed?

Deb’s tip #7 is to Let Them Take Pictures, and obviously, I love to do this, myself.

When we’ve been in galleries or museums that don’t entirely interest us a the beginning, either because we feel like it’s unappealing or not easy to understand, I like to come up with a conversation-starting question. I’ll ask, we look around the room, and come back to debate. Two easy ones are:

• What’s your favorite piece of art and why?
• If you could step into a painting to live in, which one would you pick?

For some reason, we find ourselves becoming more passionate about the art in the course of attempting to persuade the others to our side.

And finally, visiting an art museum is excellent with a varied group getting together, because you can walk around on your own or together, talk to each other or ignore each other, carefully examine the art or find a couch to chat on, or take another snack break. Happy museum-ing!

*Except are they still metaphorical if I say that it acts “like” something? And yet there’s not an adjective form of simile, is there?