Art museums in big cities almost always inspire, and that’s certainly the case at the Art Institute of Chicago. I spent a morning wandering through the institute’s maze of galleries on a recent Windy City trip before sensory and informational overload (not to mention my growling stomach and aching lower back) forced me to leave. It’s just too much to absorb in one visit. What I did see, however, knocked my socks off.
I won’t bore you with a basic museum overview, since you can get that online. My personal strategy for “doing” an art museum—especially one as comprehensive in scope as this one—is to hit the obvious highlights and then zero in on what I like best, namely 17th and 18th-century European masters.

The Art Institute of Chicago contains two paintings that almost everyone, even non-scholarly types, has heard of. “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884,” by French painter Georges Seurat, dominates Gallery 240 (second level) by virtue of its sheer size. Seurat’s masterpiece, which depicts Parisian city dwellers gathered at a park on an island in the River Seine, is a defining example of pointillism. Close up, the myriad individual dot and dash brushstrokes are very distinct, but as you step back they blend together. I’m also intrigued by this painting’s sense of formality; practically every figure is facing the water, but no one is interacting. 

Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” (Gallery 263, second level) is an even more recognizable work since it’s been amusingly parodied any number of times. Little-known fact: The dour-faced couple—a farmer and his unmarried daughter—were in real life the painter’s dentist and his sister, Nan Wood. The painting is small and hangs unobtrusively in a large gallery, but it’s a testament to “American Gothic’s” iconic place in popular culture that you recognize it instantly.

The European works impressed me, particularly the sacred grandeur of El Greco’s “Assumption of the Virgin” (Gallery 211, second level). Dutch portraitist Anthony Van Dyck, one of my favorites, is represented by “Portrait of a Lady” (Gallery 208, second level). This seated noblewoman’s neck is encircled by a stiff white lace collar, and obviously she didn’t spend time mopping floors or doing anything else that would muck up her pretty but impractical pair of lace cuffs. Two paintings down from the Van Dyck is “Portrait of a Seated Woman” by Anthonis Mor, court painter to Philip II, the king of Spain. Supposedly the wife of one of the merchant elite of Antwerp, she’s bedecked in a lace cap and braid-trimmed bodice—and looks exactly like a guy in drag. Perhaps old Anthonis was fooled.    

I love old Dutch still life paintings, and Frans Snyders’ “Still Life With Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market” (also in Gallery 208) is an outstanding example. In addition to the titular objects, it has two squabbling roosters and a young pickpocket stealing from the bearded merchant whose attention is focused on the bounty of his vendor stall.

I was fast approaching burnout when I stumbled quite by accident onto “Mountain Brook” (Gallery 171, first level) by another favorite of mine, 19th-century landscape painter Albert Bierstadt. Bierstadt is celebrated for his panoramic depictions of the American West, but this early career work portrays a scene from New England’s White Mountains. The realistic effect of sunlight illuminating a rock in the foreground and the lone kingfisher perched on a felled tree branch are two things about this painting that captivated me.

In addition to paintings there are sculptures, photography, suits of armor, even a paperweight collection. In an art museum most of my attention usually goes to the paintings, but I have to mention two decorative ceramic displays. “Monkey Band” (Gallery 231, second level) is a group of miniature 18th-century German Meissen porcelain figurines—monkeys playing fifes, lutes and drums, complete with bewigged band leader—arranged atop a circa 1750 silver table centerpiece from Turin. The ornately gilded “Centerpiece Stand with Pair of Sugar Casters and Oil or Vinegar Cruet” (Gallery 212), also Meissen porcelain, would fit right in at a very extravagant dinner party.

I didn’t even make it to the Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing, which opened last year. There’s just too much to see here; I’ll save it for my next visit. But I lingered for a few minutes in both the North and South gardens, on either side of the main building. The former is a shady respite planted with flowers and the latter features a lovely fountain replete with nymphs and cherubs. And the twin lion sculptures flanking the Michigan Avenue entrance are—as lion sculptures tend to be—just plain cool.





The Art Institute of Chicago is at 111 S. Michigan Ave., next to Millennium Park, click on the map for details and directions.