New appreciation

Last night I attended an Art After Dark event at the Tampa Art Museum. It was fun to mingle with the crowd amongst the art after hours, to the throbbing sounds of a live band. They had a really nice exhibition titled Tourism and the American Landscape, featuring the artwork of Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran. I will admit that these types of paintings, when viewed as reproductions in books or online, seem almost insufferably boring (in my contemporary opinion), so I didn't have high hopes. But viewing the works of art in person makes such a huge difference! It becomes an entirely different experience of the art when one is able to view them upclose, in person - to see the various brushstrokes, the thickness or thinness of the paint, the luminescent quality of the paint. I gained a new appreciation for these artists, and was reminded of how important it is to view works of art in person as much as possible. I was also inspired to try some landscapes of my own! I have plenty of reference material from photos I've taken abroad, so I hope to tackle them in the coming weeks.