There is a museum on the University of Oklahoma campus that takes the visitor to lands far and near. Moments in the Fred Jones Museum of Art compel the visitor to ponder the world and its cultures.
I found myself spending four hours perusing the sculptures and paintings of this museum on a recent trip to the area. My daughter, beginning her college life on the OU campus, this fall, needed to spend a day with the marching band in the building across the street from this stone structure, and during the last year or so, I have wondered as to what might await me inside the museum.
The large, bronze Sphinx out front certainly draws the eye, but I'm not so sure it gives the right impression about what is inside. Is this a modern art building, a display of student art created in college classes, or is it a serious collection of masterpieces? The steel sculpture on the other side of the entrance is no help: it is a wheel of curved steel, with each curve ending in simplistic human eyes. When I saw the title of the piece, I had to laugh out loud: Big Walking Eye Flower. No one can claim that particular piece is wrongly named.
I found myself spending four hours perusing the sculptures and paintings of this museum on a recent trip to the area. My daughter, beginning her college life on the OU campus, this fall, needed to spend a day with the marching band in the building across the street from this stone structure, and during the last year or so, I have wondered as to what might await me inside the museum.
The large, bronze Sphinx out front certainly draws the eye, but I'm not so sure it gives the right impression about what is inside. Is this a modern art building, a display of student art created in college classes, or is it a serious collection of masterpieces? The steel sculpture on the other side of the entrance is no help: it is a wheel of curved steel, with each curve ending in simplistic human eyes. When I saw the title of the piece, I had to laugh out loud: Big Walking Eye Flower. No one can claim that particular piece is wrongly named.
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Of course, as sights and sounds often do, the sculpture and its title start me to thinking:
What if everything was named exactly as they are?
What if nothing was subjective?
Sometimes I see a title, and the accompanying art piece needs further interpretation for me. Sometimes the artists purpose eludes me, and I fail to understand the meaning of it.
But for the Big Walking Eye Flower, the name is perhaps the best part of the sculpture. Of course, I'm pretty sure the thing is rolling around the corner - to get away from that Sphinx creature on the other side. What it may not know is that there are more modern sculptures in its path (not pictured here), including a giant man leisurely reclining in the grass (and by that I mean that he is half-way buried in the lawn).
The whole museum has kind of a Tardis effect in that it seems much larger on the inside than it does on the outside. Normally, I wouldn't have the time to appreciate every single piece that hangs in an art museum, but as I said, I was in there for four hours on a Friday, just me and a few docents with nothing else to do except guard the art and keep me from breathing too closely to it. In a couple of days, I'll take you inside the museum for a look at one section.
What if everything was named exactly as they are?
What if nothing was subjective?
Sometimes I see a title, and the accompanying art piece needs further interpretation for me. Sometimes the artists purpose eludes me, and I fail to understand the meaning of it.
But for the Big Walking Eye Flower, the name is perhaps the best part of the sculpture. Of course, I'm pretty sure the thing is rolling around the corner - to get away from that Sphinx creature on the other side. What it may not know is that there are more modern sculptures in its path (not pictured here), including a giant man leisurely reclining in the grass (and by that I mean that he is half-way buried in the lawn).
The whole museum has kind of a Tardis effect in that it seems much larger on the inside than it does on the outside. Normally, I wouldn't have the time to appreciate every single piece that hangs in an art museum, but as I said, I was in there for four hours on a Friday, just me and a few docents with nothing else to do except guard the art and keep me from breathing too closely to it. In a couple of days, I'll take you inside the museum for a look at one section.
