On April 30, students in art department chairperson Jen Bubp’s AP Art History class will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the original artwork they have been studying this year. They will take the Saturday to explore the museum and also, according to Bubp, review for their AP exam. Bupb said the exam is the following week so they will use the trip to review paintings they have learned about throughout the year.

“Learning about art is one thing. Seeing it in person is a whole other thing,” Bubp said. She said that the trip allows students to experience the art in a way that a classroom environment cannot do.

This will be junior Mary Carmen Zakrajsek’s second year going on the trip. During her freshman year, Bubp invited Zakrajsek’s whole art class to come on the trip alongside the AP students. Zakrajsek said the trip was really cool and she loved seeing all the different kinds of artwork. This time, however, as an AP student, she will go with much more knowledge about the artwork than last time.

“I’m most looking forward to just being able to identify the pieces of artwork that I’ve learned about. I know, most often before, I would walk around art galleries and I would say, ‘Oh that’s a nice painting, but I don’t really know anything about it,’” Zakrajsek said. “This class really helps you understand the culture and context and everything going on at the time and why the painter painted that painting.”

She agreed with Bubp that when art is experienced in person, it’s a totally different experience than learning about it in class.

“Seeing it in person is better than just seeing it in your textbook. Every person gets a different experience,” she said.

Zakrajsek said that she thinks everyone should take an art history course sometime in their life and that she would definitely recommend AP Art History to anyone. While it is a time-consuming and challenging class for Zakrajsek, she said she finds it extremely interesting and very beneficial to understanding the history of America and other cultures.

Zakrajsek said,“I think art has a story to tell and knowing what happened in the past through the artwork helps you understand artists now and what they’re trying to copy or how they’re trying to make themselves new.”