I have always loved art history, for the stories a work of art can tell us of its time, place and the people who lived at that particular point in history. Although I note the formal elements of a work, I am more interested in engagement with art on a personal level- how does it make me feel, think, understand. I had a particularly profound experience in a museum this June that touched on all these elements of engagement and more...
I caught the Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from the Florence Cathedral at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York on the last day of the exhibit, the last day of the museum, as a matter of fact. I came to the show to see masterpieces that had never before left Italy in a totally new setting (it would have been sacrilegious for me to not visit such greatness when it was at my doorstep) but left with a new awareness of the greatness of the Renaissance.
