Raqeeb Chang's Day Off

The Art Institute of Chicago is well known as one of the most complete art museums in the country, and today I had the privilege of attending it. We were there from 12-4 PM, and during that time I was able to see some of the most famous paintings ever, including American Gothic by Grant Wood, Self-Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, and Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, to name a few. The museum also had some incredible exhibit rooms, such as the Thorne Miniature Room and the Arthur Rubloff Collection of Paperweights.

We had taken the L to meet Tori at the Art Institute, and from there we went to have lunch at Shake Shack. I’ve been craving Shake Shack since the last time I’ve been here, and it was great to have the pleasure of eating their burgers once again. They actually have a vegetarian burger option on the menu, a surprising rarity among American fast food restaurants. It’s called the Shroom Burger, and the patty is basically a crispy portobello mushroom that somehow has melted cheese cooked into it. The cheese oozes out with every bite, and everything about it is so well done and beautifully put together.

A view of the Shroom Burger.

After lunch, we actually entered the museum. The first hall I went to was the photography section. There were a lot of pieces by Robert Frank on display, and they were all captivating, if not downright chilling. The emotions conveyed by the relation between his subjects and the scenes were just so intense, I couldn’t look away.

I visited the Thorne Miniature Room next. All of the little rooms had so much detail and everything looked so delicate. It was interesting to see how the rooms changed between time periods and location. The rooms that I enjoyed the most were probably the 17th century French rooms and the more recent American houses. The French rooms were very dark and sophisticated, and there was so much detail and elegance in everything from the furniture to the cutlery. The recent American houses were attractive to me because of the certain melancholy that permeated the living room scenes; details like the large amount of empty alcohol bottles, the crumpled stacks of newspaper, and the subtle shabbiness of the rooms portrayed a sense of dissatisfaction with the monotony of life.

The paperweights section was next. At first, I had thought that this exhibit was supposed to be something ironic, but when I entered the room, I saw why it had a place in this museum. The paperweights were remarkably well-crafted and beautiful. If you’ve ever seen a raindrop cake, that’s what they were shaped like, and they were filled with flowers, insects, and paper. The vibrancy and fragility of the paperweights made it seem like they were pieces of nature that had been captured in a drop of water.

One of  my favorite paperweights from the room.

When we were done looking at the paperweights, Olivia and I headed through the East Asian art to get to the Modern Wing. There were so many beautiful pieces of tableware and cutlery, and some of them were so thin, it seemed impossible that they had survived hundreds of years without being broken. At the Modern Wing, we looked at the Warhol pieces that were on display, and I got to listen to Olivia rant about how colored lines on a canvas weren’t “real art.” At this point, we were pretty tired, but we wanted to see some of the more historically relevant paintings in the museum, so we walked over to where they were.

A silhouette of Olivia I took in the Modern Wing.

I saw Nighthawks, American Gothic, and Self-Portrait in the flesh, but the painting what stood out most to me was a Monet piece called Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect. I’m not sure why, but for some reason the painting evoked chills. I stood for what seemed like forever (but was probably really only 5 minutes) in front of it, trying to figure out exactly what about it was so breathtaking to me. I never did figure it out, but now at least I have a new favorite painting.

Today was what I needed to put yesterday’s awful news behind me. It was relaxing to have time to walk through the museum after a hectic first week, and seeing our mom again was fun. This trip helped me to reset my mind and get ready for next week.