On December 6th, the National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) went on a field trip to two of DC’s museums. Students got to go and view art at The Hirshhorn Museum and The National Gallery of Art. Some students only went to the National Gallery while others got to experience both.
According to the National Gallery of Art website, The National Gallery of Art was conceived and given to citizens of America by Andrew W. Mellon. Andrew W. Mellon served as a secretary of the treasury for four presidents from 1921 to 1932. Andrew was also a financier and an art collector. A world-class national art museum was wanted because other nations had their own. President Franklin D. Roosevelt supplied sculptures and paintings that he had owned for the museum. The museum was accepted by Congress in 1937.
The Hirshhorn Museum was given to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1960s. The museum was established in 1966 by an act of Congress. Gordon Bunshaft is the one who designed the museum. The Hirshhorn museum was named after Joseph H. Hirshhorn who has a permanent art collection in that museum. Joseph is also the museum’s founding donor.
Many pieces of art had been favored by students. Freshman Allie Dewey liked part of the immersive installation by John Akomfrah which is located at the Hirshhorn Museum. John had reused plastic containers and put them upside down to give off an unsettling glow through a hallway, which related to much of his work. Paintings found in the National Gallery of Art had also been favored.
Freshman, Alexandra “Ally” Downey took an interest in a painting named “Dutch Ships Near the Coast”. This work of art is one made by Willem van de Velde the Elder. Senior, Molly Ritchie had found herself to like the painting “Moonlit Landscape with Bridge”. This was painted by Aert van der Neer. “I like how they painted the clouds and captured an emotion through the dark weather,” stated Ritchie. Both
Ally and Molly had also found the painting “Vase of Flowers” to be really beautiful. This one-of-a-kind piece was painted by a Dutch artist named Jan Davidsz de Heem.
Junior, Helena Kamph is fascinated by one painting in particular. The painting is titled “Youth” and it’s one of the Voyage of Life paintings that were painted by Thomas Cole. “The whole series of paintings is a favorite of mine, but I love this one in particular because it is humongous (about 5 by 7 feet) and the artist did a fantastic job with value and realism while still playing off of whimsy and subtle religious undertones with the angel in the bottom right,” explained Kamph. “The fact that it’s oil as well is insane because it takes much longer to dry so imagining him make something this large three other times just baffles me.”
Going on field trips is a really good way for students to learn more about their class and take a greater interest in it. Seeing the visual representations of what students are learning about inside their class can get students excited about the subject. Other people in the world don’t get a chance to experience these types of learning atmospheres and it’s great that as students of Liberty High School, being so close to D.C., those experiences are at the tip of our fingers.
