The Crocker Art Museum

On the second floor of the Crocker Art Museum an oil painting hangs on a plum colored wall. It’s not your typical, dull piece of art. It is over 300 years old, and it is so detailed, so incredible, so real, that time itself begins to slow and your mind begins to slow down along with it. And that is a very refreshing feeling.


The Crocker Art Museum in nestled near the heart of downtown Sacramento, it is stuffed with thousands of pieces of art that are just waiting to inspire you.


The Crocker has been in operation since the late 1800’s and has an extensive collection of Art from all over the world.


Asian Art, Contemporary art, Sculpture and European Art are some of the permanent collections that the museum has to offer. The Crocker also, “Hosts 15 changing exhibitions annually, highlighting a variety of media, time periods and cultures,” according to their website.


Each gallery has a different feeling and it’s own unique vibe.


In the California gallery, paintings are crammed next to each other from the floor up to the ceiling in no particular arrangement. The larger paintings steal your attention at eye level, while smaller detailed paintings seem lost and too close to the ceiling to be appreciated.


The Friedman, Ose and Tsakopoulos galleries display their art in a friendlier way. Pieces are spaced apart and aren’t overcrowded or hung too high to see. These galleries make viewing the pieces of art a bit easier.


One of the best parts of the Crocker Museum is the rotation of the exhibitions, these exhibitions continue to draw people in from all over California.

The current exhibition at the Crocker is “Grandma Moses: Mother to the Nation” According to the Crocker Art Museum guide, Anna Mary Robertson also known as, Grandma Moses produced work that, “celebrates family community and the idyllic rituals accompanying changing seasons and holidays.”


The Guide also suggests that Robertson’s work, “Reveals much about the profound change in identity Americans experienced following the Great Depression, World War II and post-war prosperity.”


At first glance these paintings seem simple, in one of her paintings, a pair of characters stand amongst a snowy hill, they wear pink skin faces and black dots for eyes.


But the deeper you look the more you will see. Brown dots turn into cows and green paint turns into a pasture sprinkled with wildflowers.

Looking at things deeper is what viewing art is all about, it forces you to observe and analyze.


Maybe you won’t see that Robertson’s painting, “celebrates family community and the idyllic rituals accompanying changing seasons and holidays.”


Most of the time, what the artist intends for you to see and what you actually see are two completely different things, and that is perfectly fine.


Sometimes Art can be less about figuring out what it the meaning is and more about how it makes you feel.


At the moment there is some construction around the museum.

The Crocker, “ Is planning a 125,000-square-foot expantion scheduled to open in 2010 that will triple its size, improve visitor amenities, quadruple changing exhibition space and allow more of the permanent collection to be on view,” their website stated.


But a few orange cones and a little dirt on the sidewalk shouldn’t keep you from exploring the unfamiliar parts of your city, you might just be inspired.