Yesterday I visited the NC Museum of the Arts. I had anticipated it to be a watershed moment for me because I had never visited a museum without someone else before.
It was a watershed experience. But not because I was alone.
The museum had the exhibits sectioned off into different rooms. There were exhibits for:
- Ancient African Art – circa 3000 BC and later
- Egyptian Funerary art, sculpture and vase painting from ancient Greece and Rome
- Paintings from the Italian Renaissance, the Baroque Period, the Flemish and the Germans
As I looked at the artwork I was transfixed. I saw portraits of people and scenes that were were 1500 years old. Yet, the people and scenes looked nearly identical to what might be painted today. There were superficial differences, like clothing styles and technology, but the expressions on the people’s faces and the stories told by the scenes were quite familiar. There were bar arguments, family dinners, formal portraits, pictures of war, religious scenes and nudes.
I imagined what the subjects of the paintings were like. I wondered if the painters themselves were like today’s artisans and craftsman, simply trying to make a paycheck to pay for food and rent.
I thought about how many pieces of art didn’t survive through the centuries. These “rare” pieces may not have been the best. They may have simply been the best preserved.
I thought about how small and insignificant I was in the grand scheme of human life. Here were paintings that someone had purchased for thousands or millions of dollars. And all the artists, subjects and owners were all dead. Most in less than 80 years.
It reminded me of being at the ocean. As I watch wave after wave roll in, I think “this has been going on forever and ill continue to go on ing after I am gone.“
There is something spiritual and magical and serene about this.
I wasn’t expecting to find that in an art museum.