subject: Visiting The Philadelphia Museum Of Art [print this page] When you are in Philadelphia you may hear many people talk about the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Visiting this museum is one of those activities that you must participate in while you are on vacation to Philly.
Before visiting the museum you want to make sure that you understand the rich history of this monument. The more that you understand about the museum and those that have made it what is today the more you may appreciate it.
The location of the museum adds to the beauty of the building. Right at the end of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, it has grown far more than any of the original founders had planned for and the immensity of the building is apparent when you look at it from the outside.
Currently within the museum there are over 225,000 works of art. Some of these pieces are not renowned or well known across the world while other pieces are prized possessions that document some of the biggest achievements in art.
The Museum came about because of the Centennial Exposition in 1876. This exposition was held at Fairmount Park and the Pennsylvania State Legislature decided that a hall needed to be built that could be a gallery for this exposition.
This hall that they wanted to build was going to stay open even after the exposition so that the public could come through and experience the beauty of art. Construction commenced on what would eventually become the art museum we walk through today.
At the same time the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art made plans of establishing a museum of art that would also house a school. This school would be focused on the development of new artists.
In just a year the school opened with an enrolling class of only one hundred. Just months before the school opened the doors to the Memorial Hall that the legislature had built for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 opened.
The Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art had to continually move locations because so many new students were enrolling. Finally on September 10, 1893 students started taking classes in buildings that surrounded the Memorial Hall.
It was not until 1938 that the two institutions combined forces and the name of the single institution was changed to the Philadelphia Museum and School of Industrial Art. Eventually different facets of the colleges broke off to create a few different schools.
This museum has a rich history of students and also artists. There are many artists that rose to fame because of the instruction that they were able to receive while they were attending art school within the walls of the museum.
There are many different exhibitions that come through this museum. Right now the Eakins painting, Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross is being displayed for the first time after many years of being stored away.
The painting has been cleaned and restored to enable those that want to view it to see the intricate beauties of the painting. This painting is often renowned as the greatest American painting of the nineteenth century.
Because of the nature of the painting when Eakins first finished it there were no museums that would house it. The graphic nature of the piece takes those who view it right into the classroom of the Jefferson Medical College.
The processor that is portrayed was Dr. Samuel Gross who was our nation's most celebrated and renowned surgeon of the time. Because the painting has been tucked away for so many years the museum has been eagerly anticipating the start of this exhibit.
The exhibit also offers many different insights as to what the painting would have looked like after it was first completed. You can see how the painting has changed over the course of over a hundred years.
Eakins created the piece so that he would be able to present it at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The painting was rejected as being too gruesome and so it is not until today that the painting has been shown in the venue it was originally created for.
There are a lot of things to do in Philadelphia. When you are visiting Philly you want to make sure that you understand what you want out of the vacation and you do not allow yourself to leave disappointed.
If you are not interested in going to an art museum, do not go. Take the time to find activities that will make your vacation well worth the time.
