The National Gallery of Art’s Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age is almost over — it ends May 3 — and, unfortunately, I have not been able to get down to Washington to see it. My bad, as kids say — much to the dismay of purists, including, on this particular point, me.
But a brochure that landed on my desk the other day made me wish I were a kid again. For this Saturday and Sunday, the NGA has created a Family “Weekend in the Dutch Republic” that sounds terrific. Aside from the usual family-activity booklets that help families explore the show and make-your-own Dutch cityscapes with rubber stamps, the NGA is showing a special doll house reproducing a period Dutch canal house and presenting a program of 17th century music for children with lute, violin, harpsicord dulcimer and voices of the National Gallery Chamber Players.
Museums everywhere are doing their best to attract families, but these programs sound particularly good to me. Take a look at the dollhouse here, for example — it’s interactive.
The NGA’s “educational resource,” a 165-page book in PDF form, is great for older kids and adults. The podcasts are, too.
Imho, programs like these — actually attached to the art — are far, far better than the videos, games, sleepovers and yoga-for-children classes that other museums are now using to lure kids and their parents. For this exhibition, from afar, the NGA looks like a model worthy of imitation.
Photo Credit: Jacob van Ruisdale’s Amsterdam, Seen from the South (c. 1680), National Gallery of Art