I took Chloe to the Peabody Essex Museum to see their new exhibition; "Painting Summer in New England". It was pretty much what I expected, pretty paintings of dunes, people in dunes, sunsets and sun rises. It even had a painting by Maxfield Parrish, the Thomas Kincade of the early 20th century. There were a few surprises though. Having never seen an Alex Katz painting in person, it was interesting to see two canvases that were the size of a barn. In the last gallery of the exhibition (there were 5 in all, wear comfortable shoes), there was a slightly modern-looking/Impressionist oil painting of a typical Boston brownstone that turned out to be G-Spa at 33 Newbury St. which is a property of the real estate company I work at. Small world.
The PEM has recently won the honor of being voted one of the top 10 art museums for kids in the country. When my parents moved us here from South Carolina, I vividly remember going to museums in Salem as a kid. They tried to take me to the Salem Witch museum, but the presentation with the lit-up tableaux and glowing red pentagram scared the crap out of me, so we ended up at the PEM in it's former incarnation as a dusty, neatly labeled version of Grandma's Attic. The object that still sticks in my mind is a tiny dessiccated monkey's head and torso sewn onto a dried fish tail with it's typed gray placard that read "Japanese Mermaid".
Hopefully Chloe's first trip to a museum didn't warp her mind like that did. She really got into an Alex Katz seascape. And she loved the Van Eyck-like self portait by a painter who depicted himself in his boxer shorts holding a baby in his lap. I think it reminded her of the struggle mankind faces in our postmodern society.
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