SARATOGA SPRINGS. - October is a gorgeous month. The lovely foliage at this time of year makes for a beautiful outdoor walk or a lovely car ride.
If you are like me and need a destination while leaf-peeking, I recommend a visit to an area museum.
A trip to any art museum is an opportunity to find serenity. Immersion in beauty and self-exploration is a way to leave behind the pressures of 21st century life. In the midst of a health pandemic and pre-election tensions – serenity, in any shape or form, is greatly welcome.
There are several museums that are available virtually, but we are also fortunate by having a number of area museums in the area who have opened their doors for visitors.
Among them, is the Albany Institute of History and Art. The exhibits at the museum offers an opportunity to be in touch with our past, but one of the true treasures is to stand before their vast collection of landscape paintings from The Hudson River School. It’s a humbling experience because you can be captured in awe by the huge paintings that extoll the grandeur of nature.
Paintings by Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher Durant and more are not only beautiful to see, the experience reminds us about the small place humans have in the world.
For those who enjoy simpler, less complex times, a visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts is a must. Rockwell’s work was nostalgic even when he created them. Scenes of small town life that show the bond between family members and neighbors are as idealistic and they are heartwarming.
But Rockwell also had a social conscience. His “The Four Freedoms” (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, and Freedom of Fear) are as valid today as they were when created in 1943. The 1964 anti-segregation piece “The Problem We All Live With” which shows a young Black girl being escorted into a school by a police guard, reminds us problems with race relations are nothing new. Indeed, it is a reminder of how little we’ve progressed in almost 80 years.
Indeed, a visit to the Rockwell Museum is a lesson for 2020. It’s a way to compare who we want to be as individuals versus who we really are as a nation.
Nearby, in Western Massachusetts are two major museums that are about 15 miles apart. The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. Though close to each other in distance, they couldn’t be further apart in form.
The Clark has one of the finest collections of classical art in the country representing European and American painting and sculpture from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. If you love the Impressionists, you might never leave. There are an abundance of Renoir paintings and pieces by Monet, Manet, Cezanne and Matisse, among others.
Indeed, if the day or your mood is dark, and you need a touch of light, the Clark is an oasis of frothy beauty. On a sunny day, their outdoor exhibits offer a sense of exhilaration and an opportunity to appreciate how art can complement the beauty of nature.
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams begins where the Clark leaves off. It is a place where little is defined. Almost nothing in the museum – which also serves as an outdoor and indoor performing arts center – is easily classified. It encourages established and emerging artists to push boundaries and to redefine what constitutes art.
It’s easy to dismiss some work until you realize your criticisms are the same ones that scorned the Impressionist artists a century ago. Indeed, their limited appeal to modern sensibilities helps make you realize that the term contemporary is synonymous with temporal. This ability to find beauty in things that are not comfortable is helpful when applied to life outside the walls of a museum.
Art has more than aesthetic value. The site of Mass MoCA is a reminder of the shifting nature of economic power. Its 254,000 square feet of space was once used as an important manufacturing factory that was the main economic driver of North Adams. Today it is the home of a world-famous contemporary art center that is responsible for the redevelopment of a community whose economy collapsed when the plant closed.
It’s a lesson that art is not only good for the soul, it is good for the economy.
Though many museums are open, and have common protocols to assure a safe visit, there is a wide range of hours and ticket availability. It’s wise to visit a museum’s website to find specific policies regarding hours, ticket availability social distancing and face mask policies.
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
