Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut

Back to Wadsworth we went.

This time, we were on a new mission. Modern Art and the Renaissance is what we were after. The museum shifted some collections around and had some rooms closed off, but what we saw was really great. Much of what was there has been there for a while, but we hadn’t taken much interest in it because there was so much to see. This time, I enjoyed taking a second (or first) look.

A new collection that people were pretty excited about is Monet’s Water Lilies –

The painter Claude Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and ten years later acquired an adjoining plot of land across from his house. Inspired by his love for Japanese prints, he began to transform the space into a water garden and built a Japanese style bridge at the north end from which he could observe the flowers….Monet produced more than 300 paintings of these watery floral subjects…

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures of borrowed collections.

What really caught my eye was the “Hudson River School Collection.” We have walked past these paintings each time we visited this museum and kept passing right by for some reason or another. I seem to remember there being a tour once. Everyone was kind of in the way. The other time…I don’t know. Either way, this was an awesome collection. I am happy we took the time to really get a nice up close look at these paintings because the detail was astounding. Nothing in the museum compared to the detail of these things. I got a few pretty good photos, but nothing does these paintings justice compared to standing in front of each piece. You can tell which photos they are below by just looking for the natural landscape scenes.

The other paintings I liked were fairly random, but all share one characteristic…contrast. I like bold work with nice colors, good detail and a lot of contrast. To me, it’s like candy and it’s easy to understand. Some things I don’t have difficulty relating to. You’ll see.

Anyway, here are my favorites of the pictures I took during our latest trip to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. It was a good day.