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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler turned Deborah Ross’s world upside down. Kongisberg’s book, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, chronicles the adventures of Claudia and her brother, who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book kindled Ross’s imagination so much that when she visited the museum with her parents, she retraced the protagonist’s steps in search of the Egyptian cat, the fountain, and Michelangelo’s sculpture.

I recall flipping through Ebony magazine as a child in the 80s and often seeing pictures of Fashion Fair models. It didn’t dawn on me then how the power of fashion was being used to inspire an entire community. After seeing “Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair” at the North Carolina Museum of Art, it became clear to me. I developed a deeper sense of the importance of John and Eunice Johnson’s creation. The Johnsons started Fashion Fair in 1958. This quote by Mr. Johnson, which was a part of the exhibit, placed…

My family always visited art museums when I was a child. I’m not quite sure why, as we never talked about the art, and I wondered, in secret, what exactly we were supposed to be doing there. When I was about eight years old, I read a book that answered that question: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. It is the story of two children—a brother and a sister—who run away from home to solve the mystery of a sculpture: was it a long-lost work by Michelangelo? They hide in the Metropolitan Museum…

In what I believe was the latter part of the 1980s, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a van Gogh exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. And for the first time in my life, I wore one of those machines around my neck, where you listen to headphones and you hear somebody describe what it is you’re going to see. It was a brand-new experience.

The narrator was the then-director of the Metropolitan Museum, Philippe de Montebello, and at the introductory part of the exhibit, I was really struck by the quality of what he was saying. It was…

When I first encountered Paul Cezanne's most famous painting, The Bathers, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art I was struck by the way the artist was able to depict subtle differences among the figures even though none of them have distinct facial features. Over time, as I've revisited this amazing work and learned more about Cezanne's desire to create a work that was both modern and timeless, I find myself constantly noticing different things—the natural community of the nude bathers versus the buildings in the distance, the framing…

Answering the question whethera humanities moment looks different across generations, David Denby shares an example of such moment he and his son experienced together at the Art Institute of Chicago.