Museums, Libraries-- Dead Men Talking

For our class in my American Heritage class I have yet again had a phenomenal time. Our class had delicious pizza...just for kicks! and after a quick peer review we headed off to the Museum of Art. Museums were established as a, "temple to the Muses," a gathering of art and experience which allow for a concentrated creative energy. I like libraries because it is essentially a collection of dead people who still have a word to say--they survive to continually give us something and the same can be said for art.
Our class was lead in a tour of the Museum's permanent collection of religious art..."awe"some. It was fascinating to see the work of people survive for hundreds of years after them and still have a prominent place so long after their death. I will never see these people...never talk to them, discuss their lives or their view on things...but I can get close. Seeing the art, especially the beautiful annunciation painting, I can see how they saw the world through the symbolism in their work...something I haven't realized until last semester. Before this realization I had always regarded art as pretty pictures, to me they lacked the symbolism I could readily find in novels and where simply a nice way to depict people, plants, or whatever the artist wished to stare at endlessly. Only after talking having an Honors lecture on iconography did i realize that art has potent symbols, like poetry, which I have simply over looked my entire life, but I have since become fascinated with finding symbols hidden by artists and especially yesterday during our tour.