Charles Wilson Peale's Museum

Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.

Founded in 1965, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History showcases the world's largest permanent exhibit on African American culture. My visits there are always educational and profoundly moving. The museum has an incredible perspective on the past and the present journey of African Americans. At the same time, it takes us on a comprehensive journey of the African American contribution to the world. Today, I will take us on that journey and paint a vivid image of Charles H. Wright Museum.

Over the weekend, I took the time to explore two museums. The first museum I visited was the D.I.A , also known as the Detroit Institute of Arts. The D.I.A was a very beautiful, multicultural, and unique place. I also took the time to visit and explore the Charles H. Wright Museum of Detroit. Luckily, these museums weren’t too far from each other they were roughly 5-7 minutes apart. The Charles H. Wright Museum was also very beautiful, it was more appealing to me because it is a museum that exhibits and highlights the history of the African American culture. The Charles H. Wright museum also happens to be the largest African American museum in the world.

Any questions about whether a museum-visit activity fits the course and assignment well enough will be decided by the instructor when the student seeks approval for the activity. Any alternative

To highlight the relationship between each of the exhibitions, the staff could provide daily visitors with a cohesive guide map of the entire museum. The current location of the museum is massive to accommodate for the displays as well as three research laboratories, but due to large size, each exhibit feels isolated and

The Peale family was known as the the “First Family of American Art”. Charles Wilson Peale was one of the greatest painters in the United States. Peale was also a very interesting man. He opened the first “American Natural History Museum” in his own house in the 1780s. He collected mastodon bones, fossils, minerals, and preserved animals (jackals, mongooses, and bison). Peale also had a collection of amphibians, birds, fish, and insects. From the famous expedition of the West (104-1806) Meriwether Lewis and William, the explorers donated many specimens they had found on the way to Peale’s collection.

Originally, I planned on taking the one hour drive to the Charles H. Wright Museum. I imagined that my field trip to that particular museum would be beneficial to both myself furthermore, my paper. I visited the Ypsilanti Historical Museum instead, having little awe during my observational trip. First and foremost everywhere I glanced I wanted to see a black face sadly, that did not happen in my favor. This museum definitely appeals to the eye for creativity plus their modernization. The notable African Americans the museum did hold were placed in a glass case, indubitably separated (maybe I just make everything a racial thing, but nowadays it is hard not to). Also, I can count on one hand how many African American females I witnessed in a

To understand Peale and his artistic success, one must account for the compelling influence of his father. During the mid to late 1700s, Charles Willson Peale dominated several fields and professions, such as: artist, politician, scientist, inventor, and naturalist. Robert Plate notes in Charles Willson Peale: Son of Liberty, Father of Art and Science, that such was C.W Peale’s adoration for art and knowledge, he named all his children after prominent artists, hence the reason for Rembrandt’s name. Growing up as a Peale, Rembrandt spent his early days in his father’s studio and museum , playing and working, but most of all absorbing priceless knowledge and skill. In addition, he was surrounded by several key founding fathers, including George Washing and Benjamin Franklin. As previously stated, the first opportunity Rembrandt Peale had to paint Washington was at seventeen years old. Although growing up immersed in by art and prominent figures, the adolescent Peale could hardly contain his anxious fueled state. Ron Chernow describes the scene in, Washington: A Life, that “so nervously did the young man prepare for the sitting that he could scarcely mix hi colors and decided to precede only if his father sketched a portrait beside him.” However, throughout the remanding sixty-two years of Rembrandt’s career confidence would not

The sounds loud, deafening even, as shots rang out. The fighting raged on, over to the left, an explosion went off, knocking a young man off his feet, pain stung his arms, legs, his body, as he fell to the ground, first to his knees then to his hands. His face hit the dirt. The sounds were loud, deafening even, as more shots rang out, and then the sounds were just in the background, a distant memory, the young man faded, but as he did, he did for his country. Before I walked into The Coles Museum, after I left, and during my time there, I had, and still am thinking and pondering greatly on what freedom is, and what it means to me. Freedom is a power, freedom is a privilege, and we have it because of our veterans and those who fight.

Under the guidance of Charles Willson Peale (fig. 1) in 1805, a group of Philadelphian artists and merchants gathered to ratify the charter that formed the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) the oldest art school and museum in the United States. Founded on the dedication and principles of education, collecting, and exhibiting American art. Peale and the other Found Fathers of American art sought “to promote the cultivation of the Fine Arts, in the United States…and exciting the efforts of the artists, gradually to unfold, enlighten and invigorate the talents of our Countrymen.”

The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum located in the Florida International University (FIU) campus is a major cultural institution and has been opened since 1977. The building has three floors and several galleries to display numerous art works. In the first floor there is a gallery exclusively for kids. Here you can find all sorts of art stations to have kids develop and explore their creative and artistic side. The second floor is dedicated to the traveling exhibits; during the visit of this paper the museum had two traveling/special exhibits in display. One of the exhibits was by the Cuban artist Carlos Luna, Green Machine and the other by a traveling photographer Richard Saxton, Creole World. In the third floor of the museum there

The premises of the Museum are also well kept. I was also amazed to find out that the visit to the Museum is completely free. Since it’s a public place, no one charges any person for the things that they view at the place.

Creating art is one of the single defining factors that set humans apart from animal species. Through art, humans are able to express their innermost ideas and feelings, without having the difficulty of trying to find the correct words to accurately describe their thought processes. Works of art can help us to understand the people who have come before us. This is evidenced by the knowledge humans have discovered of prehistoric men and their symbolic cave paintings. The expression, style, and meaning vary and archaeologists put in much effort to uncover these works.

I went to The Art Institute of Chicago on a Thursday when it was free for Illinois resident and when there were different exhibitions going on. There was long line at the entrance near the museum at 6pm in the evening. I went alone because I thought I can have better focus on picking a good art work. I was ready to go through all the magnificent paintings for my art museum paper. As I walked through the museum, there were colorful Indian Modern art exhibited for the occasion. They were big and vibrant. The was also a special exhibition of Tarsila Do Amaral, one of the leading Latin American Modernist artist who paint like Cubism, Futurism and expressionism. Her artworks were childlike in terms of the painting style of objects and people. I was most fond of the modernist and contemporary part of the gallery with painters like Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon. I was fascinated with Salvador Dali’s Venus de Milo with Drawers. The drawers unnaturalistically located on a human body was intriguing. The depth of the human mind and subconsciousness are creatively represented by these drawers on Venus de Milo. Francis bacon’s work Figure with meat was not bad either. Figure with Meat is a disturbing depiction of Pope Innocent X sat in front of a cow carcass cut lengthways in half. (Gould) Like his other painting, the theme is dark and twisted. The carcass is included serve as a direct reminder that death will be at the end await

A greater number of educators are looking to museums to help them attain their educational objectives. Howard Gardner has identified Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood as the perfect environment for stimulating the natural curiosity of a child. Furthermore, in response to demands for new educational approaches, older children are using museums to develop their critical facilities in art and design (Campbell, 1992).