Visiting the Classics at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Apart from the occasional spa day... the two lions at the entrance to The Art Institute of Chicago have greeted visitors since 1894, a year after the museum’s permanent location opened on Michigan Avenue.
The museum itself was founded in 1879. Carved by Edward Kemeys, America’s first professional animal sculptor, the two-ton lion sculptures have reflected the city’s evolution, wearing masks, jerseys and helmets to reflect important events in Chicago history.
By Leslie Wu
"The lions may not guard the museum as much as advertise what people will find in its galleries: power, grace, beauty and a welcome touch of the wild,” wrote Associate Director of Communications Paul Jones on the museum’s blog.
Out of the museum’s 300,000 works—10,000 of which are on view at any given time—people often flock to the museum to see popular pieces such as Georges-Pierre Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884. Probably the museum’s most immediately recognizable acquisition, Seurat’s unique use of pointillism (tiny, complementary-coloured dots) makes the piece an iconic and must-see stop on a visit to the museum.
Georges-Pierre Seurat
A Sunday on la Grande Jatte, 1884
1884–86, painted border 1888–89
The Art Institute of Chicago
Helen Birch Barlett Memorial Collection
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“For us, it’s an enigmatic painting. It’s one that we return to again and again. You never get tired of it,” says Gloria Groom, David and Mary Winton Green Curator and chair of European Painting and Sculpture, in the museum’s guided tour. “Because you’re always finding something else that is unusual, that makes you think differently about what you thought you knew. And that, I think, is the sign of a great painting.”
The name references the date Seurat first began work on the piece. Observant viewers will note that the painting contains a multi-coloured painted border and a custom-made frame following the painted area, both reconstructed by the museum according to the artist’s style.
From a sunny group outing on the Seine to a broody scene of isolation, Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting Nighthawks creates a sense of dissonance in the viewer, according to former Field-McCormick Chair and Curator of American Art Judith Barter. “It looks real, but it’s not. There’s no sense of real depth,” says Barter in the museum’s guided tour. “When you try to go deep into this picture, it pushes you back to the surface. He uses acid greens against bright yellows and oranges—the red dress of the woman with her orange hair. These set your teeth on edge, but they do work together. He was a brilliant colorist.” The red-dressed woman was, in fact, modelled on Hopper’s wife, Jo, and Hopper himself appears as the man facing away from the viewer, writes Sarah Kelly Oehler, current Field-McCormick Chair and Curator of American Art, in “Nighthawks as Hope: A Curator Muses on Edward Hopper and Crisis”. According to Oehler, the painting was Hopper’s response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the entrance of the United States into World War II.
Edward Hopper
Nighthawks, 1942
The Art Institute of Chicago
Friends of American Art Collection
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The much-parodied American Gothic, was, in its way, already a celebration of a way of life long gone by the time artist Grant Wood painted it. “Ironically, in 1930, this neat, tidy little farm couple was already a dying breed. In 1920, this country was predominantly urban, and no longer rural,” says Barter in the museum’s guided tour. “People in Chicago loved this picture because it was something so foreign to them. It was certainly an American scene, but it wasn’t something that people [who] lived in big cities could relate to very well. And they found it rather exotic and fun, and so it was quite popular.” The house, discovered by Wood when travelling through a town called Eldon, was already similarly out of date, based on a style called Carpenter Gothic from the 1880s.
“It was not at all modern and not at all reflective of 50 years of architectural history. He looked at it, and said ‘Who would live in this outdated house?’ And he decided it would be ‘American Gothic people.’ That was the term that he gave to them,” wrote Oehler in “American Gothic: A Curator Answers the Top Five FAQs”.
Grant Wood
The American Gothic, 1930
The Art Institute of Chicago
Friends of American Art Collection
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The painting, based on Wood’s sister and his dentist, won the artist a third-place award called the Norman Wait Harris Bronze Award, which came with a cash prize of $300 USD at the time (roughly $5,600 today). Apart from the painting’s notoriety, it is also significant for its use of repeating forms and rhythmic lines. “If you look closely, the prongs of the pitchfork get repeated in his overalls, which get repeated in some ways in the lines of the house,” wrote Oehler. “And then the woman’s apron has all these little circles that get repeated in other forms up in the curtains. He’s created a composition that’s subtle, interesting, and quite well done.”
With over a million square feet of exhibitions spanning, as the museum claims, “5,000 years of human creativity”, The Art Institute of Chicago offers much to discover for the art novice or expert. Walk up the stairs between those two lions and find your own unique adventure amidst classical and modern works.
Your jet is ready when you are.
Photos Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago