by One Monet on display + one Chihuly on display = we went to the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina!
The hanging Chihuly glass sculpture looked awfully similar in style the one we had recently seen in Virginia, but it was still beautiful. Even better, this one had an ability to view it from an upper level rather than just looking up from below, and it was glowing from the sunlight streaming into the atrium on the sunny day we visited.
The Monet was also awfully similar to one we had just seen in Raleigh, so it was lovely but not as exciting as I’d hoped. We found a Hassam I liked quite a bit, and several items by artists we’d never heard of but whose art we enjoyed (such as the cover photo, Cape Ann, by Anthony Thieme, undated).
The museum is unusual in that it is organized thematically, rather than by period or style. Contemporary works were mixed in with ancient artifacts and paintings by Dutch masters, with each room devoted to a single concept or idea. Occasionally the themes seemed very abstracted, while in other rooms the connections were easier to make between the varied works on display.
