Two events on one day: A disparity in scope, a familiarity of purpose
How do you take a measure of art?
This is a question that amuses me as I consider two stories in last Monday’s paper.
One, at the bottom of Page 1, is our Mick Zawislak’s story of a museum exhibit. It is accompanied by a light-hearted, brightly colored illustration of a dog family having a picnic. The picture is by celebrated children’s book illustrator Richard Scarry and was used for a panel with the 1961 “Little Golden Calendar.” It is part of an exhibit at the Dunn Museum in Libertyville called “Childhood Classics: 100 Years of Original Illustration.”
The other, at the top of Page 2, is a wire service story involving a very different museum. It describes events related to a brazen daylight theft of jewels at the Louvre in Paris, France, the most-visited art museum in the world. Two men have been arrested, according to the story, and two others remain at large, in a massive investigation that will surely capture the imagination of people around the world and someday be the subject of a blockbuster Hollywood thriller.
Here in Libertyville, “The goal of ‘Childhood Classics’ is to bring generations together through storytelling,” says Alicia Fullerton, operations manager for the Dunn Museum. “The exhibition celebrates illustration as both an art form and a shared memory.”
No doubt, something similar could be said about the historical collection in Paris of world-famous paintings, sculpture and, of course, royal jewels — though the perpetual wave of hundreds of jostling visitors elbowing for position in front of the Mona Lisa hardly suggests the notion of “bringing generations together.”
Yet, I have to marvel at a certain kernel of commonality in the appeal of these two very different artistic venues, and a sort of wry irony in their appearance in the newspaper on the same day. Yes, one is a quaint exhibit in a small and quiet community gallery and the other is a spellbinding whodunit at a huge and crowded world-famous attraction. But the two sites do both appeal to the heart and the mind in ways that are the unique purview of the visual arts.
And, there is a very practical difference that is worth the attention of a suburban audience. You can see the classic works of Scarry and Sarah Noble Ives, Maurice Sendak, Garth Williams and more with just a short drive into Lake County — or perhaps to some other local museum in your own community — at the affordable cost of a modest fee. To join the sweaty scrum in front of “La Joconde,” you’ll have to take an eight-hour flight and spend a few thousand dollars.
That is not to say the two experiences are the same except for their convenience and cost. They represent a vast disparity in scope, of course. But they feature a warm, pleasant familiarity in purpose. It was, if nothing else, thought provoking to find them juxtaposed as they were on a single day in the news.
• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His book “To Nudge The World: Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is a finalist for the Chicago Writer’s Association’s 2025 Book of the Year and is available at eckhartzpress.com.