My son and Miro

Friday schools were closed so I took my son to the Baltimore Museum of Art. This is his first visit to an art museum. It never occurred to me to take him, honestly. But when my sister returned from Paris, she brough him a book called My Little Orsay. He was fascinated by the paintings and wanted to see the real ones. I told him Paris is a little far, but the BMA has a fantastic collection by the same artists, so we'd go there.

He surprised me by recognizing both the Thinker and the Kiss (he called it the people getting married) by Rodin. He also recognized Little Dancer by Degas, which is also at the Orsay. We saw paintings by Renoir, Monet, Seurat, Gaughin, Matisse and Cezanne. He was funny with how he recognized things... Seurat was the dot-guy. Gaughin was the orange painter. Cezanne was the fruit painter. His favorite of that group was Matisse - he said he liked the grey cat picture best. (The painting is actually called Interior with Dog but I see where it could be mistaken for a cat.)

We also looked through the modern art wing and his face was just so alive. We saw a few pieces of installation art. Our favorite was an entire room filled with floor fans, tubing, thousands of small pieces of styrofoam and little automatic floor sweepers. The fans and tubes would blow air at random, moving the floor sweepers and styrofoam pieces around. You can actually go into the room and be part of the art, moving things around yourself.

When we were done we went to the gift shop. I let him pick out a calender for next year. I partly expected him to pick the Chagall, since his name is Marc spelled the same way. But after looking through all the painters, his favorite was Miro. His favorite painting in the entire museum was also by Miro. His adjective to describe the painting was melty/blobby. He told me he liked the colors and the shapes and that each painting could be many different things.

For his sister, he picked a calender of Degas. He told me his sister loves ballerinas so she'd like that one. They look like princesses.

I was so glad I took him. It was such an amazing insight into his mind. Letting him discover and see new things, and observing what he liked and what he didn't. Seeing what he was drawn to and what he walked right by. He told me for Christmas he wants a paintbrush.