A Day At The Art Museum: Draft 1

I was sitting in my boyfriends car listening to Dexter Holland from The Offspring sing “Come Out and Play” and staring out the window at the beautiful blue sky that appeared to touch the water as we drove over the Walt Whitman bridge. I was completely calm until we got off the bridge. The minute our back tires left the bridge, a wave of overwhelming excitement fell over me. Then when the museum was finally in my sight, I couldn’t contain myself. I had been there a few times before, but I couldn’t wait to go back. While we were looking for the parking garage, I noticed a tree that looked like it had been struck by lightning, then I looked closer and realized it was made of metal. It was a sculpture! I was so excited to see my first sculpture of the day that the minute we parked, I rushed my boyfriend out of the car. I grabbed his hand and pulled him because honestly he wasn’t going fast enough for me. When we finally entered the doors of the museum, I was in awe. It was bigger than I remembered. It was so huge, we didn’t even know where to start. So we grabbed a map from the front desk, started from the bottom and worked our way up.

We started at the American Art section which had amazing paintings and furniture from throughout history. One piece that stood out to me was this beautiful wooden desk that had three fairy figures on the left, middle, and right side. The two fairy figures on the left and right side were holding what appeared to be two candle holders that had a metallic bottom that looked like the bottom of a candle holder, but on top of each was a beautiful glass top that made the candle holders look like cups.The fairy in the middle was holding up a little old time clock. Underneath these fairies, these gorgeous designs were carved into the wood and at the very bottom of the desk there were two drawers on each side. I wouldn’t mind having this piece as a desk in my home, it was absolutely beautiful.

We then went to the European Art section which had many paintings of European history. My favorite painting in this section was a huge portrait of Prometheus getting his liver eaten out by an eagle. Sounds gross, I know, but the story behind it is interesting. The story is that Prometheus tricked Zeus into giving mankind the best parts of the animal that were given to the gods, and to give the gods the worse parts.When Zeus found out, he punished Prometheus by having an eagle eat his liver out.

Next we went to the Modern and Contemporary art section. This was filled with many different types of art, but my favorite was this collage that had pictures from all over New York. Well, I’m assuming all the pictures from New York. There was a picture of the Statue of Liberty at the bottom left hand corner. The rest of the pictures are filling the right hand side of the piece. They are all of streets and buildings and the background is white with random streaks of paint. I thought the placement of the pictures and the color of the paint made the piece, but I have always been a sucker for collages.

We then went to my favorite section of the whole museum, the Asian Art section. It had many sculptures, little figures, and masks, but my favorite part was the Asian architecture. When we first got to the Asian Art section, we stepped into this huge room that looked like something out of Tomb Raider. At the top of the room, there were little figures of people carved into the wall which bordered the entire room. Then there were these statues of people holding up the ceiling. Then there was a bench that you could sit on and in front of these benches were three statues of people kept in glass cases.

That was our last stop at the main building, so we walked back down to the ground floor and started making our way to the Rodin Museum which was about five to ten minutes away from the main building. This was a museum dedicated to sculptor Auguste Rodin. He made many beautiful sculptures, but my favorite is this statue of a man standing with his legs crossed with his left arm extended in the air and a woman occupying his right. She is on her knees next to him and her back is bent as if she is laying in his arms, and they are kissing. It’s a beautiful piece and I really like the detail of it.

That was our last stop of the day, well almost. When we left the Rodin Museum, we started heading back to the car. I felt sad that the day was over, but that ended when we passed this park that had a little playground for kids and a swing set. Obviously we’re too big for the playground, but my boyfriend pointed out the swingset and asked if I’d want to go on it. He knows I love swinging, so of course I couldn’t say no. So we swung on the swings for a while and just talked. I think that was my favorite part of the day.