Thick curved lines and straight angles danced on a red background. Pointing to the painting, I said, “It’s part of a series of paintings called ‘Playground.’ That one reminds me of a teeter-totter.”
Studying the painting, my four-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) piped up, “That one reminds me of a slide!”
“Yeah, it does!” I replied.
Photo courtesy of my four-year-old – I let him use my camera to take photos!
At the next painting, we read that Paul Klee painted bold dots because he liked Bach’s bass notes. So I played classical music low on my phone so we could recognize the similarities. In other places in the Phillips Museum, we stood in silence to take in the singular colors of Rothko, discussed how artists sometimes paint what they’re feeling instead of objects, and boogied in front of an Edward Hopper painting of train tracks.
It may seem odd to bring a preschooler to a modern art museum. It may seem even odder that he looked forward the trip. But we didn’t go because I’m a tiger mom or think he’s an art genius. (In fact, I have no idea what the heck his pictures are most of the time.)
