Now I’m not usually the type of person who spends their time visiting museums but Chicago has some great art and history to offer in that department. Thankfully, a friend of mine’s grandmother has a membership to both the big museums of Chicago, the Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Field Museum and Art Institute are right next to each other, so I took the train to Downtown and started my day off appreciating some history at the Field Museum. If you are unaware the Field Museum has one of the largest collections of taxidermy in the world. Some of the animals have been in the museum for over 100 years which is truly astounding when you think about the constant preservation it must take to keep 100-year-old lion looking this good!
Next, I went to this adorable rotating exhibit that they have on bio-mechanics that just opened up a couple weeks ago. It’s broken into three sections; Built to Survive, Built to Move, and Built to Discover which profile different types of animals including predators, sea creatures and tiny little bacteria.
After the Field Museum I zipped right over to the Art Institute of Chicago which was surprisingly packed for a Wednesday evening. I guess the old folks have all retired and they don’t partake in the usual Chicago activities! Well needless to say, the Art Institute was absolutely stunning. As soon as I arrived I zipped over to one of my favorite paintings of all time Renoir’s “Two Sisters on the Terrace” which never fails to move me to tears.
After spending literally 30 minutes staring at one painting I went through and caught the “hits” if you will. The Art Institute features the iconic “American Gothic”, Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”, and “Nighthawks.”
Then I just kind of went back to the hotel! I was surprise at how exhausted I was just looking at history and art.
Categories: Chicago
