Appreciating a painting to the fullest takes practice due to the work’s layered symbolism, historical context, and hidden 3-D dolphin that only reveals itself after dark. Shed some light on the art world’s many hidden mysteries with today’s Groupon: for $15, you get two tickets to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown (a $30 value).

For more than 50 years, the Clark has visually arrested aesthetes with its collection of European and American paintings, sculptures, and early photography. The exhibit Pissarro's People throws visitors an Impressionistic curveball, deviating from Pissarro's classic landscapes. Pissarro's paintings, drawings, and prints of the human figure fill the walls, depicting domestic servants, rural farm workers, and children begging for name-brand clothing. In another exhibition, Ghana-born El Anatsui's large-scale sculptures transform the discarded aluminum tops of Nigerian liquor bottles into monuments to aesthetics, and in Spaces, the large-scale photographs of German tag-team Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth display the stunning contrast between empty architecture and rooms filled with people. Free lectures, free daily gallery talks, and free artistic miming from docents educate museum-goers about what's on display.

A garnet set into the natural splendor of the Berkshires, the Clark sits atop 140 acres of explorable lawns, meadows, and walking trails. The verdant grounds boast ample forestry and flora, in addition to Stone Hill, upon which lip-quivering views of Williamstown, the Green Mountains, and a montage of someone else’s childhood may be espied.