Rembrandt, Parrish, Wood, & Van Allsburg

Last week, we had a field trip day to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the "Rembrandt in America" exhibit.  We were ot allowed to take photos inside the exhibit but the paintings and tour were amazing.  and it was not just a little bonus that on a humid 95 degree day, the art galleries are wonderfully air conditioned!

This painting, Dream Castle in the Sky, is a stop we make every time we visit.  It was painted by Maxfield Parrish, whose son, Maxfield Parrish Jr., married my Grandpa's sister, Helen. 

As we passed Grant Wood's painting, The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa, I stopped.  I have never before noticed the similarities between childrens' author & illustrator Chris Van Allsburg and Grant Wood.  Here is an illustration from Van Allsburg's The Stranger:

Different, for sure, but both from an angle of some omniscient viewer in the sky who can see the shadows as strongly as objects themselves.  If you have never seen a Van Allsburg book, you should - they are wonderfully mysterious and thought provoking.  The Mysteries of Harry Burdick (always one of my favorites) is a collection of illustrations with only one line of text each.  It is often used in writing classes to spark imagination.  The recently rereleased edition contains stories for each illustration, stories written by such authors as Kate DiCamillo, Steven King, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Lemony Snicket, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar - just a star studded line-up.  I wonder, though, if published stories accompanying the images will cause the book to lose it's value as a writing tool.