I never denied my nerdiness

Today I chose to spend the afternoon at the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. I did this because the day was grey and damp and because, well, it's the end of the semester, so I actually had the time to spare. I must say, it was wonderful . . . not so wonderful as my last experience there, but I probably can't ask for something like that to happen more than once. Anyway, I spent about five hours walking through the museums, one hour of which was a docent-guided tour of the Impressionists. Even though I love Impressionism, the highlight of the tour was not the images themselves, but the paper and the techniques used to make the prints (for we did not look at actual paintings until later). We had discussed etchings, woodcuts, and lithography in my "History of the Book" class, and I enjoyed getting to see the differences between the techniques. The absolute best thing, though, was the laid paper! First, I read one print was a lithograph on wove paper, and it struck a bell, but I didn't think anything of it. Then, I saw an etching on laid paper . . . I got close, probably far closer than the curators would have preferred, and yes, I saw the chain lines. Very exciting, very exciting indeed. The more I learn, the more I find I enjoy art on many levels. 'Tis a beautiful thing.