Osher Class Sparks Visits Far and Near

As a member of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Johns Hopkins, I take lifelong learning seriously—especially when a class brings together art, history, religion, and sometimes even music and literature.

(Fort Tryon, The Cloisters, New York)

It is such a treat to continue learning and to expand my horizons. After taking a class on Monet with Joseph Cassar at Osher at JHU, my husband Ron and I fulfilled a promise to visit Giverny in northern France. It was the experience of a lifetime!

Recently, in a series of classes on Northern Renaissance art with Osher instructor Nora Hammerman, I learned the Cloisters Museum in New York is home to several great examples of this art—and a road trip to the Big Apple was born.

The Cloisters is located at the northern tip of Manhattan, so we took the A Train to the end of the line, recalling Osher instructor Seth Kibel’s story about Duke Ellington’s classic song and how it got its name! We then climbed the steps to the top of the hill at Fort Tryon Park to reach the Cloisters, a fortress that looks like a Medieval Castle or religious retreat.

The museum’s majestic halls led to rooms filled with altarpieces, religious art, paintings, and tapestries that made us feel like we were back in the Middle Ages. Thanks to my classes with Nora, I learned that a Book of Hours was a Christian devotional book, often embellished with richly illuminated paintings. We saw several of those. The Unicorn tapestries, which filled a whole room, told a story filled with myths and symbolism, all of which were explained by a well-informed docent. Having learned so much from Nora about altarpieces that adorned the churches of that period, it was a treat to see the Merode Altarpiece, created by Robert Campin, after she had included it in one of our classes. As an added treat, the gardens and courtyards with views of the Hudson and the New Jersey Palisades were a peaceful respite from the frenetic pace of other areas of New York City.

Thank you, Osher at JHU, for providing me with exciting learning opportunities that keep me thinking, wondering, and exploring—and figuring out the New York City transit system!