It has been a thrilling couple of weeks! I am sad to be leaving Paris, but also very grateful I had the opportunity to take this class and experience this trip. My demanding schedule as an undergraduate never afforded me the chance to study abroad, so I feel this class is a great way to make up for that disappointment. I have found the arts and culture in Paris inspiring, but not in the way I had expected. Before this trip I was familiar with studying film history and photography, so I was most looking forward to the lectures and activities surrounding those topics. However, it has been a pleasant surprise how much I enjoyed the dance performances and modern paintings. This class has opened my eyes to a different side of the art world I find equally enjoyable.
Another unexpected learning experience has been discovering how art has transformed over the years. It is easy to take for granted the wonderfully open-minded art scene we enjoy today- I was unaware that this was not always the situation. The modernist artists working in late nineteenth and early twentieth century had to fight to make their voices heard, given the people in power did not approve of the work they created. It is incredible the impact their art has had, and continues to have today, given the turmoil they experienced.
If I had any question in mind about the importance of the work I saw in Paris, that was quickly erased when I made a visit to the Columbus Art Museum. The museum was featuring a photography exhibition entitled “The Radical Camera”, which featured photographs from the New York Photo League. The New York Photo League formed in order to document the Great Depression for a ignorant government, and continued to document through the McCarthy era. In discussing their influences, members of the Photo League sited Eugene Atget’s style of photography as one they tried to emulate. It was neat to make this connection and to be able to see the influences the modern art produced in Paris could have; a perfect cap to my Parisian getaway!
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