As a precursor to an assignment, English teacher Maral Guarino took her Modern Poetry class to the Norton Simon Museum on April 20. Based on different exhibits at the museum, students were to analyze art pieces to create a poem as a part of an ongoing assignment that explored the similarities between the two.

“Connecting poetry to paintings was a cool idea because they are both so different and similar at the same time,” said senior Ovsana Tsaturian. “It gave a lot of the students a chance to really analyze the painting and write about how they felt about it.”

The museum was closed to the public at the time but students were given an hour-long tour around the second floor by Caroline Jones, a museum docent, in which the group was informed on artists including Monet and Rembrandt. The sculpture garden was closed for the season, because a family of geese is visiting and the protective male goose is aggressive toward strangers around his family, according to Jones.

The second floor included artistic movements such as 19th century impressionist paintings and 21st century contemporary art. The docent encouraged students to visit again to look into the first floor, which included more Asian and Middle Eastern art. “I was inspired by the modern art work on display; the older, baroque art was too stark and serious, but the modern exhibits were refreshing and explored the bounds of creativity,” said senior Patrick Castro. “I was really intrigued by the Asian art we saw a bit of, too.”

Guarino has taken her students to the museum for the past 16 years. Guarino described the art at the museum as an alternative form of communication and expression, aside from poetry and words.