#37 Art History

I wasn’t sure how to go about learning Art History, so I started by just going to art museums. Which I will say art is nice to look at (obviously) and I saw lots of interesting pieces (such as a Picasso exhibit when I was in Budapest and when I was in NY I visited the Met), but without actually having someone there they kind of fell flat on the history aspect of it. I saw a lot, but I felt like I didn’t learn any proper Art History. Though, as a side note I do make sure to visit art museums every time I travel to different countries as I find it helps me learn the culture.

To expand upon my knowledge I looked up Art History classes on Coursera. There I found a Modern Art and Ideas course by the Museum of Modern Art and enrolled in it. Sadly it was only a 5 week course and it only took less than a day to cover all the material in it.

Though, from there I discovered that the Museum of Modern Art website has a learning section. I went and scrolled through the material and did research there for a little while.

But I still didn’t learn enough.

So with my still slim knowledge of Art History I moved onto Khan Academy. I used Khan Academy back in high school and at that time it was just a place with math and science courses. Now it has expanded to all sorts of subjects; including an entire art history section spanning from prehistoric art to neoclassical art to modern art. Needless to say Khan Academy was exactly what I needed.

Except that once I finally got into the Art History sections and lessons I realized how utterly dull I found it. I made it through 3 sections of Khan lessons and through each of those lessons I kept asking myself why do I keep forcing myself to keep going when I clearly find it boring and am not enjoying myself.

To change-up my perspectives a bit I looked up art history documentaries on Netflix and see if a different style would help me find focus. It didn’t. I couldn’t get into anything I watched and nothing seemed to click with me.

With that I came to a revelation that I didn’t want to come to. I’m not going to be an awesome Art History buff. That isn’t where my skills or talents lie and I will say I started this challenge bull-headed and convinced that I would be able to learn and master art history, but at the end of the day I don’t actually have that much interest in it.

I will say that this challenge is complete on the account that I have learned way more about Art History than previously. I just did not get to the level at which I first imagined when I came up with this goal. I would like to believe I will continue learning art history, but not seriously.

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