The Yale Art Gallery
Mr. Louis I. Kahn designed
three different art museums—one of them being the Yale Art Gallery. As said on
the Yale Art Gallery website, “[this museum] was
designed while Kahn was a visiting critic at the Yale School of Architecture.”
This museum originally opened in November of 1953as the “Yale University Art
Gallery and Design Center.” This particular building was said to have been “A
radical break from the neo-Gothic buildings that characterize much of the
campus.” Not only did it have a different look, but it was also constructed of
brick, concrete, glass, and steel. The Yale Art Gallery was Louis I. Kahn’s
first significant commission.
Just like the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale Art Gallery didn’t force the price of
admission. This area of New Haven reminds me of New York—so the building looked
humungous. When my father and I walked into this gallery, I was quite confused.
We walked through one big room of things that didn’t really interest me and I
thought that was the whole museum. What seemed weird to me was that the
entranceway almost looked like a dance floor. Also, on the side was unique
furniture that was very comfortable. I sat there to start writing my paper and
could already feel my creative juices flowing! Near the furniture were numerous
hallways that my father and I walked through to find “more gallery,” but we
didn’t find anything because the gallery is on different floors (not just one).
Anyways, the first
thing I noticed besides the artwork was the lighting. Often times museums (or
in this case, art galleries) use lighting to accent the artwork but in my
opinion, the lighting was terrible. Drawn to look up, I saw cement triangles
trying to hide pipes and little lights randomly stuck in crevices.
In
the first room there were a lot of portraits that were painted with oil. What
interested me the most in this room was the frames and how detailed it got. The
first piece of art that took my eye was Mt. Ktaadn by Frederick Edwin Church.
This painting is oil on canvas and the detail in it is phenomenal. As a
painter, it is interesting to see other painters’ techniques and how they can
go so small but still put a whole lot of detail in their works. I noticed the
very small but very detailed wagon in the corner and I also noticed a man in
the far left corner watching. The layout of this painting is also interesting.
It goes from the animals, to the trees, to the mountains, to the sky.
I
never thought of this before this “Museum Experience” course: How come most
paintings I see in museum(s) are painted in oil and not acrylic or watercolor?
It suddenly makes me wonder if it was a privilege to even have oil around or
vice versa. Was acrylic hard to find, too expensive, or was it just too hard to
work with?
The
second floor was all about African Art. It contained several pots and
sculptures—nothing I’m that into. I was told to find something that interests
me and then go with it. The one thing I thought was interesting about this
floor was that it made me realize different cultures have different depictions
of what people look like. Many of the African sculptures were sculpted to
appear as they saw their people. This included many sculptures of naked people.
Okay so maybe I
lied—there was one piece of work that did catch my eye on this floor. Even
though I knew most of the floor wouldn’t interest me, I usually always walk
around just in case. Good thing I did, because I found a head with a really
fascinating shadow. Even though I somewhat complained about the lighting in the
first couple of paragraphs, the lighting on this Headdress in the Form of a Female
Head was PERFECT. It casted a beautiful crisp shadow against the wall
behind it. It shows every outlining detail of the swirls to her hair and the
shape of her head.
On the same floor was
also Asian Art. It was weird to have two different cultures on the same floor
with complete opposite views of what people look like to them. The bodies and
faces of this Asian Art have drastically changed from the African Art next
door. I also took note that the Asians had an advantage over the Africans with
the material they used. Many of the Asian’s artworks contained white marble.
One in particular is An Altarpiece: A Figure of Rasudhara.
Like the white marble, the Asians also used other uncommon materials like
porcelain, metallic silver glaze, and green lead.
The third floor
contained European Art and American Art from 1200 to present. Roy Lichtenstein
has to be one of my favorite artists. He was an American artist from 1923-1997.
The painting in the Yale Art Gallery is called “Blam” and it is oil on canvas.
This painting shows an airplane crashing and in big red letters says “BLAM,” to
show the sound of the accident. I love Roy Lichtenstein’s work because it
reminds me of simple comic books. I also love when art spells out the sound it
is making. Bruce Everett also had a painting that fascinated me. Although the
painting is such a simple object, it has so much detail that it looks real. It
is an oil painting of a gum wrapper! It shoes the shadows on what I believe is
a table and all the highlights/lowlights of the wrapper. If it wasn’t such a
huge painting, I would think that it was a real gum wrapper and try to throw it
out!
The fourth floor showed
“Study Objects.” One painting on this floor that caught my eye was a humungous
work of art which was half painted. It
displayed a beautiful African American woman painting a picture with her paint
pallet on her hip and numbers on the picture. Each number was meant to be
painted a certain color. This painting was done by Kerry James Marshall in 2009 in acrylic paint.
Finally someone decides to paint with acrylic paint—then again it was painted
in 2009.
All in all I think
that this museum (in this case, art gallery) was a wonderful experience. It wasn’t
too big and wasn’t too small, and like Goldilocks, I found my perfect match. I didn’t
get overwhelmed and was able to see the whole museum without having an anxiety
attack. I would definitely recommend this to other arty students.
For access to my pictures, click here.
Or you can go to www.photobucket.com/mytriptoyaleartgallery
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