The group of young Asian Americans beside me gaze at
The Starry Night with its sharp spears of cypress piercing the swirling patterns of the sky.
"Is it real?" one of them asks.
"It is," I say. "Those are the real colors Van Gogh painted and the real brushstrokes. You won't see those in the immersive digitized version. This exhibition from the 1880s to the 1940s is only a fraction of what we got to look at every week when I was a kid. But the art from the 1960s to the 2020s hadn't been painted yet."
On the day of this conversation, I'd just scored a free year's MoMA membership, usually three figures, as a perk of the NYC ID that New York residents are entitled to as photo ID with numerous benefits. When I was in high school, I spent every Saturday afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art. We took the subway from Queens and feasted on art for free. Now, they've curated the hell out of the bits of the collection on display. My very favorite, Pavel Tchelitchew's
Hide and Seek, doesn't fit any category so may never make the cut.
The Cubists have plenty of wall space. I've been reading a mystery series based on art crimes, the Genevieve Lenard novels by Estelle Ryan.
The Braque Connection gave me a new appreciation of Cubism and Georges Braque in particular, as seen through the eyes of its autistic protagonist. I'd never liked Braque because his art at MoMA in the 1950s was limited to a few brown and gray paintings, which hung next to similar brown and gray canvases by his buddy Picasso. A visit to Google Images taught me that Braque had an enormous stylistic range and a broad and vivid palette. Back at MoMA in 2025, I looked at his work and that of Picasso, Juan Gris, and the other Cubists with fresh eyes. Braque's
Road near l'Estaque, which I don't remember, is a Cubist abstraction with the colors of a Cézanne.
Some of the paintings I visited many times in my teens made me feel as if I'd come home. Henri Rousseau's
The Sleeping Gypsy, Chagall's
I and the Village, and Cézanne's
Château Noir all put a huge smile on my face.
I love your reflections on revisiting art from your youth. It’s inspiring how works like Van Gogh and Chagall continue to evoke strong memories and emotions.
ReplyDeleteI agree!
DeletePictures to brighten one's day!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoy them, Janice.
DeleteI sometimes wonder if today's youth have had the opportunity to truly appreciate art or music. I fear social media and the corporate push for greed provide too great a distraction, but I could be wrong because I'm an old fart prejudiced by my own ways.
ReplyDeleteI do love Chagall's artwork, though. I strikes a chord of happiness and wonder for me.
Jerry, many of them do, but as my encounter at MoMA indicates, they may not get it that a "real" painting has anything to offer that they can't see in Immersive Van Gogh or a Starry Night mouse pad. I was glad to see those kids at the museum!
ReplyDeleteI was at MoMA one day, and I saw "The Sleeping Gypsy" in person for the first time. I looked at it, started to move on, and then I felt it calling me back: So I went back, and I ended up being hypnotized for almost half an hour. The longer I looked, the deeper into the painting I got. So yes, there is a HUGE difference between seeing a work of art in person and seeing it any other way.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started on the time I got to go to the Chagall Museum in Nice. I literally wept my way through it, wept from the sheer beauty, sheer love... I told Allan I want to live in a village outside of Nice, so I could go on pilgrimage every week, or month, and see it all again.
Eve, I did live in a village outside of Nice for a month in the Sixties, St Paul de Vence, an artistic adventure in itself in those days. Reread my story, "A Friendly Glass," in the SleuthSayers anthology, ,Murder, Neat, for a taste of the experience. No murder in real life, of course.
ReplyDeleteLiz, I remember that story very well. Oh, I'd love to go there...
DeleteLiz, I LOVE St Paul de Vence! It is probably my favourite place, even topping Italy, and I've been all over that. And your short story brought it all back. If you can believe it, I have a commerce degree but was allowed one arts elective a year, and always took art history. First place I went after graduating, was Europe to see the art I had studied (St Paul de Vence, and Chagell, being one) That was 45 years ago, sigh.
ReplyDeleteMelodie, you and Eve and I should have a mini-writers' retreat there one day—if we can afford today's prices! It's full of five-star hotels these days, alas.
DeleteMelodie, be glad you saw St Paul back then. The original of my French artist, now 90 and still prolific with his art still evolving, grew up and had his first atelier there but left when it started changing, the medieval stone façades replaced by plate glass windows. He had two ateliers in Nice, where we visited him in 1989. He now lives in southwestern France, exhibits in the region and beyond, and hosts a yearly arts festival in his olive grove, calling it Pollen d'Atelier because the artists, poets, and musicians "pollinate" each other with their creativity. My son and his family, on the other hand, visited St Paul last year without realizing it was a haunt of my youth and adored it.
ReplyDeleteYou were at MoMA and you didn't say hi? Liz!!!
ReplyDeleteI had a student pass and visited MoMA. Am I the only person on the planet who thinks The Sleeping Gypsy is reminiscent of Dalí? I have one souvenir from MoMA, Lachaise's whimsical Bumblebee Radiator Cap. I have a couple of cubist paintings I acquired elsewhere. That said, the one NYC place I always return to is The Cloisters.
Liz, you won't believe this: In preparation for a van Gogh exhibit in Brooklyn, I helped unpack one of his paintings. I was so fargenign, I almost forgot to appreciate the painting.
Leigh, I'll believe anything you tell me. Your life is as filled with interesting experiences as mine, albeit totally different ones.
ReplyDelete