On November 16, the honors and regular French 3 classes departed on a field trip to take in the French art at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Before going to the museum, the students took a short detour to La Madeleine, feasting on fine French food and dining as they chose. It was quite a sight to see about 30 students walk into an already crowded restaurant. After leaving the restaurant, we rode into downtown Dallas to see the variety of art at the museum. We posed for a group photo in front of the museum’s large fountain. Our large group had to be broken into multiple groups. One group started looking at the medieval sculptures of The Mourners, a series of statues from the tomb of John the Fearless. Each statue represents a different idea or emotion. Brendan McDonald, a junior student, marveled: “I really don’t know how an artist could create a piece like this.” While looking at The Mourners, the tour guide gave each student in the group a flashcard with an adjective on it. When a student saw this adjective in one of the Mourner statues, the guide asked him to raise his hand and describe why they thought this word applied. Commenting on this process, Madame Catherine Marchand, the French teacher, said, “This was my favorite part of the tour because it forced the students to think and really look into the emotions of the statues.” In addition to seeing the statues, we saw the elaborate paintings of Claude Monet and many other impressionist painters. Speaking of the paintings of Monet, junior Michael Velasquez exclaimed, “Wow, that’s pretty sweet.” After seeing many other painters’ works, the students came away very pleased from the art they saw. At 2:15, the students returned to Jesuit, telling all their fellow classmates of the great day they had at the Dallas Museum of Art.
