North America 2022 : Monday September 5 Day 7 Art For Art’s Sake

Robyn and I decided that I should spend at least one day in Chicago having a look at the place. We’d read and heard very good things about the Art Institute of Chicago being one of the world’s great art galleries so decided to concentrate our time there. The fact that it was also hosting a Cezanne exhibition didn’t do anything to detract from that thought.

Rob headed out early for something or other while I stayed back in the room working on catching up with emails and this travel blog. I went out at around 9:30 as I also wanted to have a wander through the Chicago Cultural Centre, only to find it closed on Mondays when I got there. Neat story about this building: Chicago burned down in the 1880s and when Queen Victoria heard about this she offered to help fund the re-building of the city’s city library. The city of Chicago accepted this offer, even though they had never had a library previously, and a fine building was erected. It is no longer the city library but has been converted into a Cultural Centre. Robyn had wandered through a few days before and said it was magnificent. Another of the things I miss due to another interest.

We went through the Cezanne exhibition first and we both had the thought that it was way bigger than anything that might have come to Australia. It was huge and there was a large number of people there. It was the last day of the exhibition and were lucky to get in early. Robyn told me that she had noticed a couple of the pieces had come from the National Gallery in Canberra. I must say I missed them.

After Cezanne it was a wander around the rest of the rooms in the building. It’s a vast and impressive collection and would really need some days to work your way through. We only had a couple of hours. As usual we looked around for the classic or iconic pictures in the galleries, discovering that Chicago was the home to some very well-known pieces. (I heard “American Gothic” described by one person there as “America’s Mona Lisa” which I thought was a good description.)

And then there is always the unexpected, like the Tiffany stained-glass window,

I had to rush back to the convention after that for the Closing Ceremony, and later the Past-Worldcon Chairs party, which was crowded and noisy. Unfortunately a lot of my contemporaries and friends tend to to avoid this function these days, probably for this very reason.

And before I knew it the convention was over and I had to pack for the next day’s travel.