Washington Winter Show 2016

55 This page is sponsored by John Thorpe Richards PLLC in honor of The Founders Board of St. John's Community Services in their own words, however, was too much for the youngest participants. The second draft had them look closely at the mosaic-like surfaces of these paintings, circle the colors they saw (red, orange, yellow, etc.), check off the types of light they saw (sparkles, shadows, sunshine, etc.), and look at the way the individual brushstrokes of color meld into recognizable scenes when they stand back to look at them (Figure 12). This got the audience thinking about defining aspects of impressionism in an age-appropriate way, more through observation than analysis. It is not too bold to assert, in this author’s opinion, that many of our test children—and the hundreds that have followed them at the National Gallery with the family guides in hand—now understand the subtleties of impressionist techniques better than most adults. These few examples convey a sense of the ways children engage with art in a gallery setting. Many of the lessons learned in preparing and testing two family guides for young audiences might well be applied to a wider audience. During a trial run with a local Brownie Scout troop, the adults enjoyed the activities as much as the girls. One parent wondered why museum guides for adults are not designed the same way, with a focus on looking, action, and response rather than on passive reading of didactic explanations. Informative text has its place, of course, but it is remarkable how much more all of us notice and how differently we learn when we are asked to actively engage with art.  ✯ Heidi Nasstrom Evans teaches and writes about art in the Washington area. She received a PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland with a concentration on material culture studies. In addition, she has a MA in the History of Decorative Arts from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum/Parsons School of Design and a BFA in the Restoration of Applied Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Figure 12: Family Guide: French Painting at the National Gallery of Art, 8-9. Figure 11: Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol—Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.