The Clark Art Institute

Photograph by Dale DiMauro

This weekend I was fortunate to visit The Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, MA as it recently reopened to the public. It had been closed for months due to COVID -19. I consider this one of the top notch art museums in the country. However, this museum is not located in a major city, but in a majestic rural setting. So when my wife and I visit, the grounds are as important to experience as the great works hanging on the walls.

I must say the experience was quite different this time. When we first arrived we had to follow all the protocols which our modern society requires these days. That is we had to wear masks at all times in the building, wash hands frequently and keep a safe distance from others. The morning in the museum was rather quite barren of people as I passed through the galleries. However, it did become more populated as the day wore on.

One of the current exhibits is titled, LINES FROM LIFE: French Drawings From the Diamond Collection, in a gallery with lovely drawings of the human figure. The above image is from the collection of Herbert and Carol Diamond. This drawing of the The Sower, c.1850 is by Alexandre-Gabriel DeCamps(French, 1803-1860) with graphite and white chalk on paper(7 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.).

A guard in the museum informed me that numerous sculptures will be installed around the grounds in the coming weeks. After leaving the museum my wife and I took a hike through the aforementioned  trails and fields which sit above the institution. It is on this hike that you not only view the grand landscape with the Berkshires as the backdrop, but you amble through their golden fields with majestic trees in their natural environment as if out of a John Constable painting.