Art Museums Curation Fine Arts Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

By on Monday, September 3, 2012

The Musée des Beaux Arts Montréal rocked my world. Like most places I go, I didn’t know much about it before going there, but when I arrived, I was amazed. The museum was founded in 1860, making it the oldest art institution in Canada. Admission to the permanent collection is free for everyone, which I think is fantastic. I love free things. The museum consists of three buildings, connected by a tunnel beneth the street. It’s funny though, because the tunnel is used as a gallery, and since it doesn’t seem dark or damp or confining, you can’t tell it’s a tunnel unless you know to look for it.  I remember just thinking that I was in a basement gallery, then ending up in another building, across the street.

In the main building, the person who gives you a list of what type of art is in which gallery tells you that the best way to go through the museum is to take the elevator to the forth floor, then go through the galleries there and work your way down.  If you do that, you see the art in a somewhat chronological order, starting with the Middle Ages and ending in the mid-twentieth century.  In the other buildings, they have collections of contemporary art and non-western art.  I wish I had more time to spend at this museum.  As it was, I had about two hours, and I feel like I saw a small fraction of the whole collection.  I will definitely stop here if I’m ever in Montreal again.

This piece was the most intriguing thing that I saw.  The full title is The Throne Room, Queluz National Palace, Sintra, Portugal, and it’s by Dorian FitzGerald.  The process by which it was created sounds interesting, involving printing the image on strips of acetate to transfer it to a canvas, which is coated in a thick acrylic, then traced with an acrylic caulk.  The result is striking, and it makes me want to attempt something similar.
So, here’s the deal.  Go to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and it will change your life and make you a better person and get rid of your acne and you will make friends with everyone.  Seriously.  It’s great.
Thanks for reading.  If you know about anything super cool that I should write about, email me.  Also, I’m super pumped for ArtPrize to start!

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