A trip to the Yale Art Gallery

     

    So I went to the Yale Art Gallery for the first time on Sunday, July 24th.

I have to admit that the main reason that lead me there was for the air condioning. After having spend most of the morning melting in my room I really felt like needing cooler air.

Therefore, this trip to the Art Gallery was all about improvisation, and not really planned. I even managed to go there with low battery on my phone, what is really unusual for me. Usually, when I go to a museum I am super serious. I want to focus on everything I see, to pay close attention to every detail and to read what is written on all the banners (because what I may enjoy even more than Art is the Art History). So yes, I spend a lot of time in the museums.

This time, I wanted to do things in a different way. I did not have any expectation, I did not want to spend too much time in there, and I wanted to mentally capture what I would see. But of course, I could not resist taking some pictures on my phone - and thanksfully my phone had been kind enough to cooperate until the end of my tour (which is great, I will be able to upload some of them here.)

So, as I said, I did not have many expectations. I started with the African Art on the first floor, in which, usually, I am not really interested. But I have to say that I have been very surprised by the wooden sculptures. I found in them something really odd and funny. Some of the scupltures were faces with really strange expressions, and the expressions were so human-like and vivid that it was like they were alive. I could even imagine myself being astonished, doubtful, or confused (for instance, I loved the first one because it made me think of Edgar saying I am always confused).

I also really enjoyed the "American decorative arts before 1900" part of the museum. I found in this area of the museum some painters I appreciate such as Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro, and Camille Corot. I saw in these famous works of art a kind of proof or validation that the museum is "valuable".

One part I did not like in the museum, however, was the one of the "European Art".

Religion art tends to make me feel uncomfortable. According to me, here there was a kind of dissonance between what the painters wanted to represent, and how they actually represented it. While religion is often about serious topics and matters, the colours were almost too cheerful (warm tones like red, orange-yellow and golden paint on wood) and the shapes too approximative, what made it laughable... Of course, I know that at the time these paintings were made, they had a lot less techniques and skills than now. I also found that the museum was not well light up.

In conlusion, I would say that this little trip to the Yale Art Gallery was pleasant. It reminded me how much I enjoy spending time in museums, and how much I am looking forward to discovering New York museums such as the MoMA, the Met, etc (for instance I am dying from seeing Edward Hopper's paintings). Eventually, I will go back to the Yale Art Gallery because, unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to see everything. :(