Back in the fall, the cozy cohort of YouTubers and TikTokers I follow were all atwitter about something called a “Personal Curriculum,” which is essentially creating your own courses of study to make yourself a more well-rounded person.
I nodded along, thought it sounded like a lovely idea, and then… did absolutely nothing about it.
Fast forward to a recent library trip, where I grabbed Great Art Explained on a whim. It’s based on a YouTube channel, which feels fitting — this whole idea started with the cozy internet people I follow, and somehow it circled back into an actual course of study.
Reader, I was immediately obsessed.
The writing is so clear and engaging — everything just makes sense. There’s no intimidation, no assumption that you already know what you’re looking at. It feels like someone is gently walking you through each piece and saying, “Here’s why this matters.”
Now I find myself in a race against the library due date, trying to study and take notes on all 30 featured works before I have to return it.
Until recently, I would have told you I wasn’t really interested in art. I didn’t know much about it, and it felt like one of those things that required more background knowledge than I had.
But then I read a book about Rembrandt pieces last year, and on my birthday I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Somewhere in there, something clicked.
Now here I am, accidentally building myself a very basic art history education. One library book at a time.
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