The Phillips Collection

I headed over to the Phillips Collection last week to see "American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection" before it closes. I'm not a huge fan of impressionism, which I referred to as boring on the streets of Manhattan last weekend. But I actually really liked (parts of) this exhibit, especially the Allen Tucker paintings and the Childe Hassams. The exhibit explains how the American impressionists put their own spin on the European school. They also took painting outside and used similar techniques, but they played with lighting and chronicled slightly different subjects than their European counterparts.

While there, I wandered into a room with a few paintings of the Washington Color School, which I decided would be the ideal place to hold a cocktail party. There's also the Rothko room, which is exciting for its dimensions and the resultant aesthetic, but the National Gallery still has a better collection.

And while looking at an Elizabeth Murray work, I heard two art profs whispering about how they thought she just died. Luckily I could fill them in. They also noted, (and something that I had already been thinking about), that Thomas Downing's paintings are reminiscent of Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross," (also over at the National Gallery) for their use of line and provide a comparison since Newman's work doesn't use color and Downing uses interesting gradations of color.