Magritte

Well you can't let summer pass by without a little culture and an educational field trip.  I think the last time we went to the Art Insitute of Chicago Paige was a baby.  It's just one of the those places we haven't made repeat visits to.  However, I have had it on my list to do again and when I saw that there was a Magritte exhibit in town and they were having a free night, I was all over it.

Magritte is a Belgian surrealist artist.  I admit, I didn't know much about him and wasn't familiar with all his work, but I still wanted to go see the exhibit.  Besides if you are going to an art exhibit you might as well go see a surrealist.  At least you know the artwork is going to be interesting and unique.

The girls and I decided to ride the train and spend the afternoon in downtown Chicago beginning at the art museum.  We started with the Magritte exhibit which did not disappoint.  No pictures were allowed but there was some pretty awesome and pretty odd pieces.  At first Paige was a little confused about what was going on in these pictures but by the end she started to understand the point of view of surrealism.  I am really glad we got to see the exhibit before it left town.

After Magritte, we spent a little extra time in the museum looking at some of the more famous pieces in the permanent collection.  We saw Van Gogh, Seurat, Rembrandt and lots of Monet.  Chicago also has American Gothic by Grant Wood so we had to stop and see that.  It was a great art history lesson for the girls.  I didn't push them too hard but I think exposure is important.

Water Lilies, by Monet

After the museum we walked over to Millennium park to see the Bean and faces fountain.  It was a beautiful evening in the city and was fun to just hang out.

selfies at the Bean

After this we called Dave who was at work.  He came over and picked us up so we could ride home together.  We also made a stop at Wow Bao for some Chinese steamed buns to eat for a snack in the car.   AND that's it for our field trip.