Bus Trip - Clark Art Institute

Bus Trip - Clark Art Institute

September 22, 11am - 7pm

Come join fellow Westfield Athenaeum art lovers for a trip to the Clark Art Museum on September 22nd. Bus transportation, lunch at the Lion Inn in Stockbridge, and entry into the museum are included in the price. A bus lecture by Athenaeum Director Guy McLain will also be included in the day's activities.  

The featured show at the Clark is a huge exhibit showcasing the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, famously known for his painting "the Scream." Titled "Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth," this is the first exhibition in the United States to consider how the noted Norwegian artist employed nature to convey meaning in his art. Munch is regarded primarily as a figure painter, and his most celebrated paintings employ themes usually centered around love, anxiety, longing, and death. 

This exhibit, featuring more than 75 paintings, explores Munch's use of landscape, most often the forests and fjords of his native Scandinavia, to create a mysterious world connected to dreams, nostalgic longing, and human anxieties. This show also draws on new research which shows that Munch was employing his art to address issues surrounding the interaction of humans with nature. Jay A. Clarke, a Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago and an advisor for this show, stated that, "Alongside depictions of death, existential torment, and troubled relationships, Munch also created imagery reflecting his knowledge of science, showing his embrace of pantheism, and a deep reverence for nature.." 

Scholars are becoming increasingly aware of how Munch developed his own pantheistic worldview that connected human biology, plant life, and the solar system, with how humans interacted with the environment. Ortrud Westheider, Director of the Museum Barberini said. "With the first exhibition devoted exclusively to Munch's landscaped depictions, we are opening up a facet of his oeuvre that has hitherto been little represented, and the dramatic weather conditions in his paintings take on a special urgency, especially against the backdrop of the looming climate catastrophe."

This exhibit also presents the viewer the opportunity to explore Munch's unique painting style. His work, bursting onto the art scene as early as the 1880s, employed an original combination of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Symbolism. Early influences included Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri de Toulous-Lautrec. He was also influenced by the literary work of August Strinberg. Later in his career he employed many of the techniques of early Modernism, always with the goal of exploring the deepest recesses of the human psyche.

This show is a must see for anyone interested in the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Join us for a day with friends enjoying great food and great art.