Philadelphia Museum of Art – June 8, 2008

Today I saw the largest collection of armor that I have ever seen. The one pictured here is the oldest homogeneous piece in the U.S. This is not really my time period, but I don’t know of any little boy, and I am one of them, that doesn’t find them fascinating. They also had a rather large collection of swords there to look at. Interestingly enough, I prefered to see the ones that were all rusty and had been found in the bottom of a river. There were several like that, and they just seem to have more of a story to tell that just draws me to them. How did it it get there? Was it thrown in? Was it dropped? Did the man carrying it drown? Who was he? Anyway, The museum was more interesting than I thought it would be.

The American collection that we saw was also very good. Some of the paintings had such detail to them that they seemed as if they might jump right off of the canvas. The furniture that they had was very beautiful and intricately designed. I know these were the best of the best pieces, but much of the craftsmanship of that period was still just amazing. It is a shame that things aren’t made like that today. It seems that we are in a throw-away society today whether you are talking about furniture or something else. Another interesting piece was a siver teapot made by Paul Revere. This will help me show students more about the man Revere, not just what they know about him from the 1861 poem.

There were a few of my favorite pieces of artwork at the museum also, powder horns. I know that the paintings and sculptures that are at the museum are amazing, but I think some of these intricately carved utilitarian objects top them all! I will talk about these in my class when I do the French and Indian War, and discuss how they changed over to the paper wrapped rounds during the Revolution because they allowed the soldier to shoot more rounds per minute.

I find it interesting that almost everyone I saw out on the front steps of the museum was looking for the Rocky staue or running up the steps recreating the scene from the movie, when the most beautiful fountain that I have ever seen in my life was located across the street and was nearly deserted. The power that the cinema has over our culture is amazing.