Today we finally went into the art gallery (The National Art Gallery/ Trade Fair Palace) which is directly across the street from our apartment. Every day, I can see it from my window but had yet to experience the art inside. Unfortunately, the five-story gallery was limited to only two floors that were open, but there was still hours’ worth of art to see. The ones that were open featured modern Czech artists.
The museum was fairly quiet except for the field trips. There were classes of various ages browsing the museum. Each student carried around a small circle to sit on while they discussed a piece of work as a class. The older groups possibly high schoolers filled out worksheets about specific pieces and presented their ideas to their peers. They seemed attentive for a morning field trip.
The younger children were in awe of everything. They would run up to certain pieces that caught their eye until their entire class followed suit. Even though they were intrigued by certain things they remained quiet, something I don’t remember happening on field trips when I was young.
I love that these students’ field trip was to an art gallery. I am not sure how the education system in the Czech Republic is structured but at home much of our fine arts education is being cut. In elementary and middle school art was not emphasized and I do not ever remember going to an art gallery on a field trip until high school.