The French Class Travels Back In Time

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Ali Surage and Ashley Cherry admire a beautiful work of art

Mary Jane Nickel, Ranger Review Reporter

On Wednesday October 30th, French classes went on a field trip to the Denver Art Museum to see a special French art exhibit that visits Denver every four years. This exhibit has many famous artist’s paintings and sketches.

Court to Café, one of the exhibit’s rooms, features fifty masterpieces from the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut including works by Nicolas Poussin, François Boucher, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh.

The famous works of art are dated all the way back through the 13th century. With each era the progression of theme and brush strokes is evident. The earlier dated paintings were of mythical beings such as Greek gods, goddesses, and angels as well as other mythical creatures. The paintings closer to the 16th and 17th century are of nature and shows how artists move outside their studios to the beautiful French countryside.

Artwork, alike to fashion and lifestyles, change throughout the years. Even though the artists all have their own unique style, they all have similarities with other artists of their time. Different time periods show different ways of painting such as brush stroke size, and subject of the painting.

Some of the paintings have audio that had interesting facts and information about that particular artist, what inspired the painting, and the background of the piece of art. From these audio recordings you can learn things and pick things up from the painting that you never would before without it.

The field trip was over all very educational as well as fun. It was very beneficial to learn French culture and French history, especially if someone would ever want to travel to France. The art acted as a time portal to travel back in time to France and experience the excitement and become lost in the beauty of enchanting colors for a very fun afternoon.