June 7, 2009 – Art Institute of Chicago

Sunday, June 07, 2009

After spending most of the morning trying to get my blog posted with a picture, Dana, Chris, Amy, and I went out to a literature fair, then ended up eating at Bennigan’s before we met up with the rest of the group at the Art Institute of Chicago. Our guide took us to the American Art section and proceeded to give us information on various paintings and artists. One that I was particularly interested in was Thomas Cole’s painting based on the book, “The Last Mohicans”. Since I discuss a couple of other paintings by Cole in the year, I thought that during the French and Indian War section, I would introduce this painting on the promethean board. I would compare and contrast the book versus the story the painting tells. We will also discuss the painting, and how the movie departs from the book. Hawkeye doesn’t end up with the sister and she does have a soldier that she is in love with waiting for her. However, the other characters seem to pretty much follow the book and painting. I will also be point out how a popular book during this time period, made this painting popular. This is similar to books published today like Harry Potter.

One other section of the museum really caught my interest and that was the impressionist painters like Degas, Monet, and Renoir. I was very interested in these paintings, as I had seen others by these artists when I was living in Europe. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to this museum. There were sooo many awesome items on display.

We stayed in the museum until about 4:00, then walked to Lake Michigan. We could see Shedd’s Aquarium and Navy Pier in the distance. The lake was full of bobbing sail boats, and it got cold in the short time that we were down there. We took off walking to Geno’s Pizza East, and after about 20 blocks found one on Well’s street. We were informed that there was another Geno’s East Pizza on Michigan, which is where the other teachers were. We arrived just a few minutes after six o’clock, waited in line to be seated, ordered drinks, deep dish pizza, and salad. Then we waited about 45 minutes for this piping hot, delicious pizza to arrive. It was worth the walk and the wait. Our feet were throbbing but our tummies were warm and full. We decided to pay $2.25 and take the #146 bus back to Congress and State. While we were headed back to University Center, I was thankful that the group had decided to spend the money and ride the bus. We had walked a very long way. Upon arriving at the Center we requested warm blankets, (because we froze last night) and sat down to blog about the day.