Night at the Museum- Reflection

Hello everyone! I have had previous experiences with art, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Natural History Museum, Madame Tussauds, the New York Hall of Science, and others. However, during my visits to museums, I would usually walk around slowly, examining paintings and displays without commenting aloud. I would tilt my head this way and that, walk around the painting or sculpture to view it at different angles, and make my own assumptions. My experience at the Night at the Museum Macaulay Event was surely different than my usual experiences with museums.

The whole museum was ours, and six hundred Macaulay students piled in. We were instructed to record our interpretations, opinions, and discussions of the works of art within the museum on a recorder. When my group formed, we received our recorders and began walking around the first floor. At first, my group was mostly silent as we looked around and tried to decide which painting we should start off with. One of the paintings on display caught my eye and I tried to understand why it appeared to be so familiar. Then, it clicked, I was looking at the Portrait of a Lady, by Giovanni Boldini. We began discussing the painting and after approximately five or ten minutes, we realized that we were actually doing the assignment and should be recording our thoughts. A member of my group clicked the “record” button on our recorder and we launched off into a very deep and interesting discussion that I had, honestly, not expected.

After the first painting, my group and I began to discuss every piece that caught our eye as we made our way through the exhibits. Occasionally, we recorded ourselves and found that our conversations gradually became more insightful, detailed, and longer. Because of this experience, we began paying attention to the minutest of details and began asking each other questions to gain another viewpoint. We discussed the backgrounds of each painting and how our dialogue may have been different if we didn’t know the story behind each painting.

I learned that communicating between one another is a more efficient method toward understanding the significance of a painting as a whole. Additionally, I met many new people and enjoyed the night’s proceedings very much. I look forward to attending many similar events in the future.

-Elizabeth