The North Star Project, 2013-2014 Report Number Forty-Three, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, by Marin Ekstrom and Misha Ignatenko

Washington, DC boasts a great deal of iconic landmarks: the Smithsonian, the White House, Capitol Hill, etc. But our inner hipsters remarked, “Why would you want to go visit something so mainstream? Art is where it is at.” Therefore, we decided to deviate from the norm and check out the gallery (though, to be fair, the Corcoran Gallery is not exactly “under the radar”). Although we initially decided to visit the gallery for rather frivolous reasons, our experience altered the way that we viewed the world afterwards, as detailed below.

We began on a chronological tour of the permanent exhibitions, starting with the “classical” works. This section featured pieces of early American artwork, ranging from colonial portraits, depictions of Native American life, and vivid oil paintings of everyday objects and landscapes. We then “fast-forwarded” to the mid-20th century, the era of greater experimentation and unfettered creativity: the pictures ranged from…