Parking costs $12 a pop but the museum itself is free. The giant atrium in the centre of the building reminds me of the British Museum. It probably looks exactly like it was proposed in concept sketches.
The Art Lens exhibit is the first time I’ve seen an art museum use augmented reality to allow visitors to interact with 3D scanned exhibits. You can get up close to a historical artifact, such as a Roman vase, without touching it. I like the idea and I think more museums should seek finding to put 3D scans of objects online.
One thing I appreciated about the Cleveland Museum of Art was its take on telling the artistic styles and methods of different cultures. Contrast this to the Detroit Institute of Arts trying to interpret history through art – a difficult task to get right. More art museums should take Cleveland’s approach in exhibiting the artwork of other cultures, leave the history to history museums.
Call me biased, the gallery on 16th century German religious art during the Renaissance really ticked my bones. I felt they did a better job of highlighting the impact it had balancing against the more elaborate French styles from the same period. They even included a piece by Lucas Cranach, Martin Luther‘s right hand man. It brought me back to the days when I retracted the Protestant Reformation in Saxony-Anhalt.
The upstairs space has a section dedicated mostly to post-revolution American art. I found its placement behind the European armor room a little bit odd, but the tour led to a satisfying end with glasswork by Tiffany next to jewelry by Fabergé.
There is, of course, an obligatory Rodin’s Thinker that every art gallery has. It was worth paying $12 for parking. There’s more culture here than in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which charged me $30.
