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Honors Class Travels to National Gallery of Art
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by Timothy P. VanBenthuysen ‘11
 On February 19, the students in a freshman honors class traveled to Washington, DC, to the National Gallery of Art. The freshman honors class, taught by Professors
Joan McRae, Mary Prevo, and Michael Utzinger, is based on the recently popular book,
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. Throughout the year, the honors students have been studying the novel and the realities of
the artistic and religious concepts within the novel. This particular trip allowed for the students to practice art analysis,
which plays a major role in The Da Vinci Code.
After an early morning departure, we arrived at the National Gallery around 10 AM. We spent the morning in the
West
Building of the gallery, which is focused on traditional art from the medieval
period to the 19th Century. Before the trip, we had each selected a 15th-Century portrait in the
collection to analyze once we were at the museum. We spent the majority of the morning working individually and analyzing
our selected portrait. Before lunch, Professor Prevo took the class around the building and spoke about famous pieces by
artists such as Michelangelo and Van Gogh, while we viewed the original piece. It was valuable having a art-historian
giving a personal tour. It is nice to be able to view original artwork, but it is even nicer being able to have a scholar
speak about aspects of the piece that a normal viewer might not realize.
After a satisfying lunch, we spent time in the East Building, which contains modern and abstract art. This collection included such artists as Picasso and Jackson Pollock. The East Building’s art pieces were undoubtedly
more contemporary than the traditional works of the West Building. It definitely helped having Professor Prevo there to
help us understand the artistic qualities of some of the abstract pieces.
The afternoon concluded with the student presentations. We headed back to the West Building and were each expected to
give a brief presentation about our analysis of our selected portrait. The class walked around in a group and spent a
few minutes listening to each student give his analysis. After a handful of presentations, we followed Professor Prevo to arguably the museums most famous piece, the Ginevra de’
Benci. The Ginevra de’ Benci is the only painting in the museum by Leonardo
da Vinci. We were able to spend time viewing
this famous piece and listen to Professor Prevo speak about the painting and its significance.
Although we were not able to view the major works by Leonardo, like the Mona
Lisa, which Dan Brown writes about in his
book, we were still able to get valuable experience with art analysis. Viewing digital images of
a painting can be informative,
but standing in front a painting is much more beneficial. Many college students studying art history
might never have the opportunity to see such famous pieces of works in a place like the National Gallery of Art.
The small size of classes at Hampden-Sydney and its proximity to Washington allows students to have experiences like this one, something, perhaps, tough
to find at many other institutes of higher learning.
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