My Son The Art Critic

On children and art.

This weekend the mister and I took the boy to the Andy Warhol exhibit that is currently showing on campus. The boy was overjoyed to be visiting his “first real art museum!!!”.

In school they learn about a new artist or form of art every month or so. One month it was Picasso and abstracts, which led to him obsessively drawing abstracts of his face for a few days. Then was Van Gogh, which caused more concern about self mutilation than sunflowers or starry nights.

I guess lately they have been studying realism, and he is really into it. Sooo into it that he got pissed at us when we didn’t know “the first artist to ever paint apples……on a table…..with a white table cloth…”. Like, how could we be so dumb....(though I am still on the top of his list if he ever needs to make a mobile shout out on Cash Cab).

We get to the exhibit and his favorite Warhol pieces are two of General Mao.

This one because “you can’t really see his nose”.

And this one because “It looks like blood…”.

All in all, he was mostly unimpressed by Warhol. He couldn’t understand why someone would paint pictures of soup cans.

Also, he was distracted by glimpses at other nearby exhibits with paintings that looked more "real". When we were done with Warhol, we went to check these out. He was very impressed with these paintings and would inspect the eyes of each portrait to see how real they looked and when we would move to another painting, he kept looking back over his shoulder to see if the eyes were following us.

The more I talk with him about art and what he likes, and why, I see that he looks at Warhol like someone who is drawing stick figures, and I get it. If I were 7 again and learning to draw and make art, I would probably look upon still life with more awe and respect than I would a giant can of soup.