The hum of Huntington goes thither, hither, hustling, bustling to places closer and father away. The last obdurate War chief throws his head back to feel the morning breeze and dewy sun, arms stretched wide to greet the community. The vast flats of grass surround the Huntington entrance of this place, empowering it was the grandeur of a 19th centaury London plaza; expansive as the concrete curls into the grass without overwhelming it. Here is the perfect balance of man and nature. Greenery and solidity. Here is where I feel two great forces are sharing one space, coexisting for complimentary reasons, for much as the stone draws man to nature, nature helps pull man toward it. Sometimes strange over sized works of sculpture sit pondering on these gates, and other times a mere offering of pink and yellow flowers is enough to appease the curious. The entrance alone seems to shout out beneath ionic columns, “Here is thy temple- come, and worship.” Elementary school children are walking by, point at the horse holding its pose, yelling high, saying the nonsensically simple thoughts that are so native to youth. The other buildings here lack the magnanimity found on this plot, all yellowed brick and concrete block, windowed to the roof. This front adds so much to the area its astounding. It gives these blocks around it a true feeling of cultural umph that the local quantity of collegiate corporations should produce, but doesn't. This is part of why I love the MFA so much: it makes going to college feel like I imagine it should. It imbues my time spent here with an endless sense of knowledge and wondering. The colleges around should be having that affect, but frankly they just seem to be giant facades covered in money; such as the time when they installed a laser light show in the front bushes of Ell Hall. But here I am home with oils and urns, and the spirit of Keats at my side. People exit the front saying, “Well aren't we cultured!” And that’s exactly how this places is supposed to make you feel.
After this man made cavern I call a building, I find a door that I've never walked through before. I am led to this square cove hidden on the backside of the museum's walls. Here vines are creeping, trees flourish, and child run around and laugh. There must be a hundred people eating lunch outside here from the cafeteria. It is is perfect, the mild mumbling of conversation, the birds flying and hopping around my very feet. Do they think I'm Snow White? Families talk and banter, their kids are running in circles playing tag, and one side of the bookstore juts itself out so that bindings may see the wood they came from. I feel an overwhelming sense of coexistence here. Now more little children meander out with their lunch boxes, looking for a place to eat their homemade food: turkey sandwich, an apple, and a brownie. Here it seems more obvious than anywhere else: nature is dependent on man, and man is dependent on nature. Man provides shelter and support and accidental food, and nature provides the scenery, the sounds, the cool slow breeze that air conditioning envies. A strange obelisk of bleeding colors stands proud and out of place. I think a statue of Oberon or Tatiana in the center would make so much more sense than some new age Obelisk, absolutely out of place between the lunching people and birds. I wish I had money to eat here with everyone else, but I am too poor, to eat anything but the two boxes of pasta in my cupboard, with butter. A little brownish bird hops toward me from the square of grass in the center, and inspects me. We are both here, in this same bit of space, unable to talk, but still sharing the air and the sounds, seeing each other, as strange as we mutually seem. He hops up on the stone where I'm sitting, mere inches from me. We trade looks for a moment longer, and he begins the adorable hop away, quick inch by quick inch. The kids to my other side are amazed, not by the birds all around them, but a mouse in the bushes. One shouts, “There is too much nature here!” Is this the world we live in? Is the youth of today afraid of the world existing over them and under them and side by side with them? I worry, about what these kids will know and how they view the world. Are they one and the same with the bird who stared at me, finding me just as out of place in this land of stone and greenery? In their future, will the world be covered in our stolid sprawl, as more and more of the ecosystems we now admire disintegrate for a lack of appreciation? I dream, and shudder.
After walking through the maw, I am expelled through the back, or is it the front, of the building. The Fenway entrance used to be the original main entrance when this building was constructed, but has now become a posterior exterior, where the front may greet concrete, but the rear can be seen to be one with the green. Fountains babble in splashing tongues and two over sized sculptures of baby heads watch the fleeting few who leave this way, or at least one does. Lines of columns stand strong, side by side, treating me to Ancient Rome in Boston once again, reveling the classical sense of art and art museums that society held up for so many years and now seems almost out of place. The trees here are large and shady, providing shelter for this discourse. The cars that travel by here are the quiet cousins of Huntington's roaring hustle; never dominating the windy hustle of leaves. Continuing around the exterior of the building I find the Japanese sand garden hidden here. An old motorcycle is parked next to it on the pavement, and I am over taken with the desire to kick out the stand guard, on the back, and cruise through the Boston streets, letting the good weather be my guide. Maybe when I go to grad school in a year. The sign informs me its purpose: for sand to mimic the water, and stone to substitute the land, creating an eternal sense of islands and waves and bridges connecting the later sections. Sandy waves protrude outward from these little rocky islands, bouncing eternal. It is gorgeous, though the sun beats heavy on my brow. The breeze kisses my face and I somehow smell the salty water, the warm sand, albeit from the bench. I am going to the beach today, after all this is over, to feel the real sand and water and earth around me.
This pieces goal is two fold: to document the sense of community here in the noble mausoleum of the past, and to show what sustainability is being created at the same time. This garden is a wonderful metaphor for the wonders of nature embracing the habit of man, to the point where the art is the nature, or is the nature the art? When brought once more the opposing side of this building, I am faced by glass and steel instead of concrete and porcelain. Here is the new construction project of the MFA. Here is where new contemporary pieces will be housed, extending the museums survey to new borders. I was told there would be picketing people here, but all I find are parked cars and crisis crossing fences keeping people out. Maybe it was too nice a day to spend protesting what is probably inevitable. I for one am not upset by this addition, although it certainly appears out of place with the rest of the building, but it is still nice, in much the same way the ICA by the docks is glassy and somehow at rest. Though this is not the ICA, it is the MFA, and maybe that alone is why people are protesting. Once more I am at the front, where I have been each time I come here to write or look, and still I am serenely taken back by the expanse before. This regality, coddled between towers and parks, colleges and more colleges. Never am I really disappointed by the exterior, and so long as it stays true to its sustainable nature, I think I never will be.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Art
I walk in and am greeted by roaring Asian lions, colored in green and golden hues. As I travel up, vases straddle the stair case, waiting to catch the ashes of the dying. At the top I shake proverbial hands with the impressions of Chinese philosopher from ages pasting, waiting politely as Confucius told them to. What impresses me most though are the gods reigning on high above, holding their beloved father Latin, with a sign that translates: architecture, picture, and sculpture. Few other combinations hold as a great majesty as this dome, guarded by armed Athena and the men (or women) in blue. There lays the secret vase guarded by two sphinxes; there sit the furies- naked and deadly. Muses frolic and Olympians pose. Along walls sit lords and ladies, scholars and busts. Above Hercules conquers a hydra, and further right or left I am greeted by more Asiatic art. Gliding to the room directly across from the top of the stairs called “European Art”, I find myself intrigued by the dark portrait of Jesus in suffering, or a stroke. Why is it so dark? Is this to illuminate the pain and suffering and despair felt by his apostles (allegedly) or to imply some dark satanic meaning related to Judas? Who knows, but Judas always gets the bad rap, poor guy. Dutch and dames litter these paintings, shrouded in a misty sheen of darkness or nudity. My favorite though is the ridiculous painting of the midget David holding Goliath's massive head. Over a shoulder he arrogantly leans a foil, hinting at a revision to setting, and I am amused by the image: a braggart, a show off, a big shot who got lucky on a big claim. Jesus. And more Jesus. The religious fanaticism of the people of the past both confounds and mystifies me, not because I care about Jesus, but in light of so many works of art based on him, I feel like I get to know the guy in just 100 feet of hall.
My darling Beatrix guides me to an intersection guarded by angels, but my favorite part of this entrance is not the angels, but the antediluvian pattern books opposing them. So elegant a hand drawn design I have never seen before, and no matter how many times I come, I remain eternally impressed. On the hall to left hang more works of European art, including the Charlemagne sized oil on canvas of Automedon and the Horses of Achilles, so grand it can only be fully seen from a score of feet back. Another painting I adore here is the Execution of Emperor Maximilian by the rebels. The way their faces are blurred, their bodies are fogged in thick barrel smoke expresses how they have been erased by death. It also creates a sense of ambiguity that lends the painting such grandeur that would not exist for any other reason. Also Moses makes waves part in another corner- show off. In the room to the right, colors suddenly leap off oil, and a menagerie of porcelain mounted birds eyes the visitors. There is a painting of paintings that I admire for simply the metaphysical thoughts it speaks, and the harbor of Venice was never such a wonderful drab blue.
If you've been following along, you might have realized I ignored the shinning silverware that sits between this two halls in front of the stairway rotunda. Being the son of a jeweler, I am oddly repelled by such reflective luminosity, like Medusa seeing her own image, I am turned from it, not fully understanding why. Not being trained in art, I am forced to rely on my thoughts and opinion and knowledge as my guide, but this helps me to reclaim the art for myself. This is because we are truly walled off from all these gorgeous things. Not allowed to touch, to taste, to smell or feel. We must only see, and even then, we are supposed to see what the experts see, and confirm our interpretations thusly. But that’s not how I roll. To me art is a personal experience, at least as much as it is a public one from the artists perspective, and personalizing the art is the best way I find to connect with it, rather than just gleam on by one after another. It is what makes the experience enjoyable, and rememberable, and why I love coming to art museums again and again. This becomes even more the case with modernist art and surrealism and cubism. Wish I could find it frankly. Oh well, onward and upward!
In another room I find amazing paintings by Cezzan and Manet and Van Gogh. These are some of my favorite well known painters. Beautiful blurry scenes of water and lillpads, Van Goghs beared mailman. This is the beauty that I dare attempt to recreate in humility to these fathers of my art when I write creatively. A tour guide walks in and says, “This is a very important room, the impressionist.” But I get the impression that she can only see it as she has been told it, not as she wants to. Either way I do agree they are a huge favorite of mine, even Renoir's painting of the dancing couple on a fine summer day.
I wander in and out of rooms, avoiding the religious iconography. It turns my stomach, the silliness of such things made for invisible people on high who can read your mind. A man passes by, treating his cell phone as a walkie talkie, moving it to his mouth to speak and ear to listen. I feel almost embarrassed for him, believing he does not get how the phone works, and politely tell him it should work if he just holds it to his ear. He says it doesn't, and I reply odd, only to be apologized to for being bothered by it. I tell him I'm not, but I guess that really isn't the truth. I should probably just mind my own business. I meander on through the Japanese gallery. The art here has a certain elegance and refined restraint that I admire; the scrolls seem to be colored in soft rainbow powders, rather then ink and watercolor. I quest downward, passing the magnificent Showa exhibit for now, looking for the samurai sword collection that was here last time: gone. They moved it out, and further more they restrict me from taking pictures down here, but I convince the guard to let me snap a picture of the sign at the entrance at least. Pots and pictures dot wall mounted boxes, and the rich deep colors of the only katanna they have remind me of the grand collection they had last time. I come back around and am stunned by the Showa Exhibit: such glorious colors splash on paper panes in a way that dazzles the imagination with their brilliance. I see the old avant guarde of 1930's Japan, works that don't make any sense to me, but none the less are interesting to contemplate. Searching for richer booties, I voyage downward to look for the more contemporary works.
I find a gallery of Japanese furniture, and I am there. At the desk, writing calligraphy, reading my Buddhist texts or studying the name of my dear Shinto gods. I am held close by the bed, warm and secure and shaded by sheets of linen. Again, no pictures. I took a few anyways. I mosey on through it, to find the Greene and Greene exhibit which oddly is the other end of the Japanese craze: the American's who couldn't get enough the Japanese style furniture and homes and art, so the Greene guys replicated it for them. Its good, but has nothing on the original. A guard wearing a thick pepper mustache sits near the entrance to the exhibit, and speaks with some heavy Greek or Italian accent. I decide to call him Zorba, though he does not know this. I find the Colonial art area on my way to more contemporary things, and know instantly that my favorite painting here is of twilight in the commons. I can remember the spot where they stand, feel the snowy sidewalk. This is a spot that I have walked by a thousand times, and feel touched to know it so well, oddly. The runner up though is nothing to frown at: the beautiful pastel painting of a woman in a row boat with her baby, under the branch of a tree on the water. It's so bright and blue and white and pink, so lovely you can't help to think: why them, since the there is obvious. I also enjoy the painting of Islamic woman going and come from church, their faces all veiled in white; hidden in plain sight. The daughters of Sargent are also in this room, and to be honest they kind of scare me. They all look so similar, and all have this empty stare, looking straight back at you. Maybe he was trying to capture the curious nature of young children, but something simply feels a little dark about it, if only the tone. The surrealist painting of the old Brooklyn bridges feels like fractals, and the epic pink cloud I also find nearby has the most wonderful name of “Antibes: The Pink Cloud”, so epic.
I walk back, in search of a room I passed”Musical Collection”. Having taught myself a lot of basic music theory, and having been a mechanical engineering major, I recognize how many of the instruments produce sound, even if I have never played them. The air vibrates with sound, and pitch is determined by the length of wave crest to wave crest, whether through air, or on string. But the ability to stop and recognize the instrumentation that creates art as art itself is a wonderful concept that I applaud. I myself want an upright piano in my home some day, but the piano collection they have hear is astounding: painting that I dare say might belong in the 19th centaury European art hall are painted right into the cover of a grand piano. Wind instruments are covered in carvings, or bent into unique shapes that defy how they work. Have you ever played a note off a wet crystal class? Well built by Ben Franklin himself is paino-eqsue version of that concept, with bowls stacked over bowls ever getting smaller with a spindle through the center, allowing speedy access to the bowl edges for playing. They have all the old lutes I have ever seen, mouth organs, banjos, harpsichord. Even a guitar with tabs that let you hammer the strings like a piano. Genius! Sadly this room is very small, and before I realize it I'm back out in the right hall again, waiting to see where I end up. I leave and move toward other parts of the museum.
In the next room is what the MFA deems, “Contemporary Art”, though my own taste wishes to rename it, “empty art”. There is some strange painting of the woods meeting at the meadows along the past, with ominous skies moving in, that says on the top, “Talk about the Future”, and at the bottom, “Forget about the Past”. Honestly, I don't even begin to understand its point or meaning. Another painting by the same artist hangs next to it, portraying a dark and seemly dangerous wooded area, with stylized writing over it the image that I can't even understand. This reminds me of why I used to hate contemporary art, it felts obscure, meaningless, and inartistic. I really want something mesmerizing to be there, but, there just isn't anything there to me. Disappointed, I find a room filled with TV's, with an array of people singing along to the same song in each TV. I'm not sure what the point is, but I sense a meaningful collectiveness in this portrayal of song, of sound. They move in shake and look in different directions, but they sing with one voice, one purpose. There are strange pictures of singers that seem from the 60's, along Warhol-eqsue colorings of the same picture, and others. The wall has a column of text against yellow titled, “Seeing Songs”. I can assume that’s probably the point of this contemporary exhibit, and the singing multitude near by. There are abstract paintings that hang in solitude here, and in their disarray I find fascination. They remind me of the abstract paintings that adorned the inside of my house before we sold it (the house that is). Except these arts have a far better sense of color than my father did. One seems to have this path down the middle with blotted black guiding it, and colors hanging in the air on either side of the path, along with other trails of colors. Abstract art may be confusing sometimes, but at least you can sense the meaning in its lines, in the reason why brush strokes were laid down here and not there. One large rectangular painting is like a thousand needles whizzing and whirling through the darkness, glancing off each other carelessly. A reverberating corridor beckons me in, and I find a projector displaying people playing air guitar to old classic rock songs. I like the songs, and the way people feel the music is sort of interesting, but once again I remain largely unimpressed by people playing air guitar. Outside are even stranger painting and drawing’s one of what I believe in a hummingbird like splotch of paint dropping and hitting water and getting ready to shoot back out again. It feels poignant in its linear orientation. My favorite piece in here is the score sheets, covered in musicians scribble and musical notes. It reminds me of the notes of a poet perfecting the poem, of writer editing the story. The mad scramble for the feel of thing that signifies it (whatever “it” is). What seems to be fading black and white textile has shadows trapped within, hiding in the meshing gray. A book sits under glass, one side a strange abstract sketch, another poem in German.
The badge wielders march in, telling me I can't take photos (damn Nazi's), and that they close in three minutes. There never feels like enough time when I visit here to do my writing. I rush out and down a hall that I have yet to notice, hoping eventually there is an exit. I stumble through the Mexican art exhibit, and am impressed. The walls are littered with photographs, of random places and events. Pleasant, but not enticing. What does catch my eye are the fleeting lithographs I find. I love lithograph, and hope to collect a few some day, particularly French ones. A lithograph of an eye stares at me, but I stare at the bright orangey red colors that burst from the block letters. The next says “Victory!” in Spanish, and has some mixed images of hand drawn patriotism such as flags and people fighting. A yellow lithograph with two hands holding a piece of paper says, “Live the Drama of Mexico”. I don't know a word of Spanish, but the majority of romance language words have the same meaning and spelling, so from my French and Latin I pick up enough. There are other examples of Mexican art, laid in stone that I find, but before I know it I'm in another hall. Goodbye Mexico! Statues and totems and masks overwhelm me, I am in what appears to be considered the collective art of Oceania, a series of islands that is. These atavistic carving are so human to me, so personal and perceptional, despite whatever foreign cultures spawned them from wood. Slender totems of gods and spirits stand together, squatting upon the squatters, so to speak. I adore the weapons. Weapons are a fascinating form of art I think because with only so many practical ways to hurt people, its interesting to see how different cultures reinvent the same weaponry. And some invent even new weapons as well. Here there is mostly curving axes, scythes, and kama like hooks. On the opposite side of the display are daggers and short swords and I thing chains and collars. All very impressive feats of metallurgy. On the walls hang tribal masks. One has a long brown or red beard, face painted white over the slender nose and flat cheeks. Other masks are far more complex and ornate, clearly meant to be warm over the whole head, and not just the face. They seem very heavy and I am glad that I don't have to wear them. Still, the complexity of colors and carving makes me jealous I can't hold them at least. Each mask is different, with some that look like demons painted white and red, and others far more brown and beige. There is even what I dare call the original skateboard deck, with the sickest painting of these thin spiky goblins. On mask has the snout of an elephant I think, though shorter. A stone face wears a bowlers hat. The scariest is of course the tall triangular mask, mouth lined with sharp teeth. There are oars and textiles and iconography held behind glass. A book under glass shows what looks like an ancient myan temple. There are little statues and big statues and tools from different trades. But the guards keep at my back, pushing me out and out.
I find the hall that runs along the bookstore. Here is the glass sculptures cased in mirrors to make them seem like they go on forever. The wall opposing has a zebra paint job covering it, with broken chairs mounted along in nefarious colors. I walk by the closed mini bar, and stare into the bookstore. Only a week or two ago I was here looking for a present for my girlfriend. Many of the items inside were very pretty and unique, but often extremely overpriced. It almost reminded me of the zoo gift shop, about as kitsch anyways. I bought a record that had been molded through heat into a bowl, and a glass turtle. Really only the tiny turtle was in my range, but don't tell her that. At least the service was very polite and helpful. On my way out I find a three minute long movie of fruit, in a bowl. Can't we just, move away from fruit in the bowl already? How many people have done it now? How many times does the same damn theme need to be reinterpreted? I watch for just a minute, and move on. A glassy hunk of metal sits in the center, glistening in the light. It certainly intrigues me, but I find myself bored with little to make of it. Finally I reach the front exit again. Having taken so long on my retreat from certain victory, I find that the sun is gone down, and the benches are empty. What held a vivacious sense of life with people here now feels barren and desolate. I suppose people had places to go, things to do. Yet for me, going to the MFA is the thing to do. To waste time in, to read or write in, to simply ponder, eat, shop, stare. This stone building is the epicenter of artistic representation in this little west side of the city, and short of the Gardener, nothing comes close.
My darling Beatrix guides me to an intersection guarded by angels, but my favorite part of this entrance is not the angels, but the antediluvian pattern books opposing them. So elegant a hand drawn design I have never seen before, and no matter how many times I come, I remain eternally impressed. On the hall to left hang more works of European art, including the Charlemagne sized oil on canvas of Automedon and the Horses of Achilles, so grand it can only be fully seen from a score of feet back. Another painting I adore here is the Execution of Emperor Maximilian by the rebels. The way their faces are blurred, their bodies are fogged in thick barrel smoke expresses how they have been erased by death. It also creates a sense of ambiguity that lends the painting such grandeur that would not exist for any other reason. Also Moses makes waves part in another corner- show off. In the room to the right, colors suddenly leap off oil, and a menagerie of porcelain mounted birds eyes the visitors. There is a painting of paintings that I admire for simply the metaphysical thoughts it speaks, and the harbor of Venice was never such a wonderful drab blue.
If you've been following along, you might have realized I ignored the shinning silverware that sits between this two halls in front of the stairway rotunda. Being the son of a jeweler, I am oddly repelled by such reflective luminosity, like Medusa seeing her own image, I am turned from it, not fully understanding why. Not being trained in art, I am forced to rely on my thoughts and opinion and knowledge as my guide, but this helps me to reclaim the art for myself. This is because we are truly walled off from all these gorgeous things. Not allowed to touch, to taste, to smell or feel. We must only see, and even then, we are supposed to see what the experts see, and confirm our interpretations thusly. But that’s not how I roll. To me art is a personal experience, at least as much as it is a public one from the artists perspective, and personalizing the art is the best way I find to connect with it, rather than just gleam on by one after another. It is what makes the experience enjoyable, and rememberable, and why I love coming to art museums again and again. This becomes even more the case with modernist art and surrealism and cubism. Wish I could find it frankly. Oh well, onward and upward!
In another room I find amazing paintings by Cezzan and Manet and Van Gogh. These are some of my favorite well known painters. Beautiful blurry scenes of water and lillpads, Van Goghs beared mailman. This is the beauty that I dare attempt to recreate in humility to these fathers of my art when I write creatively. A tour guide walks in and says, “This is a very important room, the impressionist.” But I get the impression that she can only see it as she has been told it, not as she wants to. Either way I do agree they are a huge favorite of mine, even Renoir's painting of the dancing couple on a fine summer day.
I wander in and out of rooms, avoiding the religious iconography. It turns my stomach, the silliness of such things made for invisible people on high who can read your mind. A man passes by, treating his cell phone as a walkie talkie, moving it to his mouth to speak and ear to listen. I feel almost embarrassed for him, believing he does not get how the phone works, and politely tell him it should work if he just holds it to his ear. He says it doesn't, and I reply odd, only to be apologized to for being bothered by it. I tell him I'm not, but I guess that really isn't the truth. I should probably just mind my own business. I meander on through the Japanese gallery. The art here has a certain elegance and refined restraint that I admire; the scrolls seem to be colored in soft rainbow powders, rather then ink and watercolor. I quest downward, passing the magnificent Showa exhibit for now, looking for the samurai sword collection that was here last time: gone. They moved it out, and further more they restrict me from taking pictures down here, but I convince the guard to let me snap a picture of the sign at the entrance at least. Pots and pictures dot wall mounted boxes, and the rich deep colors of the only katanna they have remind me of the grand collection they had last time. I come back around and am stunned by the Showa Exhibit: such glorious colors splash on paper panes in a way that dazzles the imagination with their brilliance. I see the old avant guarde of 1930's Japan, works that don't make any sense to me, but none the less are interesting to contemplate. Searching for richer booties, I voyage downward to look for the more contemporary works.
I find a gallery of Japanese furniture, and I am there. At the desk, writing calligraphy, reading my Buddhist texts or studying the name of my dear Shinto gods. I am held close by the bed, warm and secure and shaded by sheets of linen. Again, no pictures. I took a few anyways. I mosey on through it, to find the Greene and Greene exhibit which oddly is the other end of the Japanese craze: the American's who couldn't get enough the Japanese style furniture and homes and art, so the Greene guys replicated it for them. Its good, but has nothing on the original. A guard wearing a thick pepper mustache sits near the entrance to the exhibit, and speaks with some heavy Greek or Italian accent. I decide to call him Zorba, though he does not know this. I find the Colonial art area on my way to more contemporary things, and know instantly that my favorite painting here is of twilight in the commons. I can remember the spot where they stand, feel the snowy sidewalk. This is a spot that I have walked by a thousand times, and feel touched to know it so well, oddly. The runner up though is nothing to frown at: the beautiful pastel painting of a woman in a row boat with her baby, under the branch of a tree on the water. It's so bright and blue and white and pink, so lovely you can't help to think: why them, since the there is obvious. I also enjoy the painting of Islamic woman going and come from church, their faces all veiled in white; hidden in plain sight. The daughters of Sargent are also in this room, and to be honest they kind of scare me. They all look so similar, and all have this empty stare, looking straight back at you. Maybe he was trying to capture the curious nature of young children, but something simply feels a little dark about it, if only the tone. The surrealist painting of the old Brooklyn bridges feels like fractals, and the epic pink cloud I also find nearby has the most wonderful name of “Antibes: The Pink Cloud”, so epic.
I walk back, in search of a room I passed”Musical Collection”. Having taught myself a lot of basic music theory, and having been a mechanical engineering major, I recognize how many of the instruments produce sound, even if I have never played them. The air vibrates with sound, and pitch is determined by the length of wave crest to wave crest, whether through air, or on string. But the ability to stop and recognize the instrumentation that creates art as art itself is a wonderful concept that I applaud. I myself want an upright piano in my home some day, but the piano collection they have hear is astounding: painting that I dare say might belong in the 19th centaury European art hall are painted right into the cover of a grand piano. Wind instruments are covered in carvings, or bent into unique shapes that defy how they work. Have you ever played a note off a wet crystal class? Well built by Ben Franklin himself is paino-eqsue version of that concept, with bowls stacked over bowls ever getting smaller with a spindle through the center, allowing speedy access to the bowl edges for playing. They have all the old lutes I have ever seen, mouth organs, banjos, harpsichord. Even a guitar with tabs that let you hammer the strings like a piano. Genius! Sadly this room is very small, and before I realize it I'm back out in the right hall again, waiting to see where I end up. I leave and move toward other parts of the museum.
In the next room is what the MFA deems, “Contemporary Art”, though my own taste wishes to rename it, “empty art”. There is some strange painting of the woods meeting at the meadows along the past, with ominous skies moving in, that says on the top, “Talk about the Future”, and at the bottom, “Forget about the Past”. Honestly, I don't even begin to understand its point or meaning. Another painting by the same artist hangs next to it, portraying a dark and seemly dangerous wooded area, with stylized writing over it the image that I can't even understand. This reminds me of why I used to hate contemporary art, it felts obscure, meaningless, and inartistic. I really want something mesmerizing to be there, but, there just isn't anything there to me. Disappointed, I find a room filled with TV's, with an array of people singing along to the same song in each TV. I'm not sure what the point is, but I sense a meaningful collectiveness in this portrayal of song, of sound. They move in shake and look in different directions, but they sing with one voice, one purpose. There are strange pictures of singers that seem from the 60's, along Warhol-eqsue colorings of the same picture, and others. The wall has a column of text against yellow titled, “Seeing Songs”. I can assume that’s probably the point of this contemporary exhibit, and the singing multitude near by. There are abstract paintings that hang in solitude here, and in their disarray I find fascination. They remind me of the abstract paintings that adorned the inside of my house before we sold it (the house that is). Except these arts have a far better sense of color than my father did. One seems to have this path down the middle with blotted black guiding it, and colors hanging in the air on either side of the path, along with other trails of colors. Abstract art may be confusing sometimes, but at least you can sense the meaning in its lines, in the reason why brush strokes were laid down here and not there. One large rectangular painting is like a thousand needles whizzing and whirling through the darkness, glancing off each other carelessly. A reverberating corridor beckons me in, and I find a projector displaying people playing air guitar to old classic rock songs. I like the songs, and the way people feel the music is sort of interesting, but once again I remain largely unimpressed by people playing air guitar. Outside are even stranger painting and drawing’s one of what I believe in a hummingbird like splotch of paint dropping and hitting water and getting ready to shoot back out again. It feels poignant in its linear orientation. My favorite piece in here is the score sheets, covered in musicians scribble and musical notes. It reminds me of the notes of a poet perfecting the poem, of writer editing the story. The mad scramble for the feel of thing that signifies it (whatever “it” is). What seems to be fading black and white textile has shadows trapped within, hiding in the meshing gray. A book sits under glass, one side a strange abstract sketch, another poem in German.
The badge wielders march in, telling me I can't take photos (damn Nazi's), and that they close in three minutes. There never feels like enough time when I visit here to do my writing. I rush out and down a hall that I have yet to notice, hoping eventually there is an exit. I stumble through the Mexican art exhibit, and am impressed. The walls are littered with photographs, of random places and events. Pleasant, but not enticing. What does catch my eye are the fleeting lithographs I find. I love lithograph, and hope to collect a few some day, particularly French ones. A lithograph of an eye stares at me, but I stare at the bright orangey red colors that burst from the block letters. The next says “Victory!” in Spanish, and has some mixed images of hand drawn patriotism such as flags and people fighting. A yellow lithograph with two hands holding a piece of paper says, “Live the Drama of Mexico”. I don't know a word of Spanish, but the majority of romance language words have the same meaning and spelling, so from my French and Latin I pick up enough. There are other examples of Mexican art, laid in stone that I find, but before I know it I'm in another hall. Goodbye Mexico! Statues and totems and masks overwhelm me, I am in what appears to be considered the collective art of Oceania, a series of islands that is. These atavistic carving are so human to me, so personal and perceptional, despite whatever foreign cultures spawned them from wood. Slender totems of gods and spirits stand together, squatting upon the squatters, so to speak. I adore the weapons. Weapons are a fascinating form of art I think because with only so many practical ways to hurt people, its interesting to see how different cultures reinvent the same weaponry. And some invent even new weapons as well. Here there is mostly curving axes, scythes, and kama like hooks. On the opposite side of the display are daggers and short swords and I thing chains and collars. All very impressive feats of metallurgy. On the walls hang tribal masks. One has a long brown or red beard, face painted white over the slender nose and flat cheeks. Other masks are far more complex and ornate, clearly meant to be warm over the whole head, and not just the face. They seem very heavy and I am glad that I don't have to wear them. Still, the complexity of colors and carving makes me jealous I can't hold them at least. Each mask is different, with some that look like demons painted white and red, and others far more brown and beige. There is even what I dare call the original skateboard deck, with the sickest painting of these thin spiky goblins. On mask has the snout of an elephant I think, though shorter. A stone face wears a bowlers hat. The scariest is of course the tall triangular mask, mouth lined with sharp teeth. There are oars and textiles and iconography held behind glass. A book under glass shows what looks like an ancient myan temple. There are little statues and big statues and tools from different trades. But the guards keep at my back, pushing me out and out.
I find the hall that runs along the bookstore. Here is the glass sculptures cased in mirrors to make them seem like they go on forever. The wall opposing has a zebra paint job covering it, with broken chairs mounted along in nefarious colors. I walk by the closed mini bar, and stare into the bookstore. Only a week or two ago I was here looking for a present for my girlfriend. Many of the items inside were very pretty and unique, but often extremely overpriced. It almost reminded me of the zoo gift shop, about as kitsch anyways. I bought a record that had been molded through heat into a bowl, and a glass turtle. Really only the tiny turtle was in my range, but don't tell her that. At least the service was very polite and helpful. On my way out I find a three minute long movie of fruit, in a bowl. Can't we just, move away from fruit in the bowl already? How many people have done it now? How many times does the same damn theme need to be reinterpreted? I watch for just a minute, and move on. A glassy hunk of metal sits in the center, glistening in the light. It certainly intrigues me, but I find myself bored with little to make of it. Finally I reach the front exit again. Having taken so long on my retreat from certain victory, I find that the sun is gone down, and the benches are empty. What held a vivacious sense of life with people here now feels barren and desolate. I suppose people had places to go, things to do. Yet for me, going to the MFA is the thing to do. To waste time in, to read or write in, to simply ponder, eat, shop, stare. This stone building is the epicenter of artistic representation in this little west side of the city, and short of the Gardener, nothing comes close.
The Stone
The building on the inside brings me straight back to a classical portrayal of the fancy art museum. The first exhibit has remained the first exhibit here, though I sense that few pay its flossy whiteness much head. In the center, not more than ten feet from the over sized front doors, faces Orpheus and Cerberus, lulling new comers into a special cave of Hades, bypassing Charon and the murky Lethe. Orpheus's lyre vibrates to the sound of many voices talking. Even Cerberus places a role here while entranced by the musical cacophony: each one of his three heads guards a direction. One head faces the inside of the museum, watching those who are brave enough to intrude on this majestic mausoleum of stone. Another faces the front, guarding this place from any ill will that would dare enter. The last lonely head seems to star down, at the ground. It is said that the most sinful part of our bodies are our feet, for they are the only part the Bible does not demand we clean. I think this downward doting muzzle searches through the sins we tread with us, judging whether we are fit to walk the polished halls. Two beautiful busts straddle the first two interior pillars, facing the soft leather waiting seats across from the entrance. They are gorgeous Greek woman, all bosom and little toga. There words carved into the side of one of these pillars, “GUY LOWELL” and below “ARCHITECT” “1909”. All who enter are unknowingly worshiping at his alter. A vase of sunflowers is opposite the toga-less bust, and I am reminded of the Japanese erotic painter who used to paint woman nude from off the street, posing them with sunflowers. These rare paintings are what Van Gogh saw when he went to visit Japan, this is where Van Gogh's sunflowers come from. Art coming from art coming from women. It makes sense to me, just as any other gorgeous nude woman in my arms makes me feel like I am in contact with something divine, something deliberate and dazzling and premeditated in its beauty. This splash of undead color makes me feel that the museum as an entity wants the viewer to recognize the interaction between the overwhelming porcelain whites and marbled halls, with true natural beauty. Maybe that is why so many artists over time have focused on drawing woman: man made art attempting to capture the lithe edges of nature beautiful.
Just to the proud left from here is the ticket desk. Each and every visit I have made to the MFA has began here, and like an old ritual I glide into line. My tickets are always free because I'm a student at an Avenue of the Arts college. A small collection of schools on Huntington Avenue that all have special partnerships with the MFA to provide free admission and discounts for students. I dread the day when this place is no longer free to enter, but at a cost only. To counter this I have already decided that when it is no longer free for me to enter, I will buy memberships and use them also as tax deductions, allowing me constant access to art as well as write offs for a great cause. The membership line is always pretty empty I've noticed, at least in comparison to the general admission line. The people behind the counter are friendly and more than once have bantered with me while I picked up my ticket. What I appreciate most about this aspect of the building is actually the LCDs on the wall behind them. I have walked through constant hall after hall while writing, and there are pieces of art in exhibits that are nice, but have not truly impressed me. Yet here on the hanging monitors, I find myself faced with art that I can tell I've seen, but somehow am far more impressed by. I blame this effect on the presentation: flashing screens and gliding colors help to contrast the random photos of art with information and color, like a moth to the light. Why had I not realized their majesty before? Part of what makes a museum so great is actually what makes it so bad. The way art is presented in endless hall after hall, side by side by side by side, creates a monotony on my sense, makes it hard to pick up on art that is more subtle. So every time I get my ticket, I state at the screens, hoping to be graced with a new impression of an old memory.
Following little plants like mile markers, leading me no where but providing a sense of the moment passing, I find the Sharf Visitor Center hidden in the middle. This could be called the operations headquarters of this ancient castle. Middle ages ladies are crocheting consumers questions, armed to the teeth with large mac desktops, and TV's all over the walls showing sideshows. There is a pamphlet here on the table near by about joining. Surprisingly they have no life membership option that I can find, so I ask. Apparently there used to be but it was removed (so they could make more money I'm sure). I also learn that they have 85 thousand members, but their members do not usually outnumber the many visitors who come and go. They explain to me the museums deal with the Avenue of the Arts schools, and smile. I ask them what role they feel they play in the community, in a few or less words tell me that their role in the community is that of an educator, helping to bring cultural importance to the masses. They say they provide this to everyone by making the museum from to all after 4pm on Wednesdays, by hosting rare traveling exhibits and shows. They have a movie theater for anyone to go watch a movie in. There is the book store for shopping, a cafeteria for eating, and they claim to be hallmark part of Boston, in so many words. This visitor center is something to behold itself. The overall conglomeration of customer service, technology, and spacious contemporary structural design make it a very pleasing room on the eyes. It reminds me of the ICA on the inside, very new and fresh and shining. I like it- like the smell of a new car. They have art in here too, not the room couldn't be called art alone: Jim Dine took etchings and sketches and lithographs of his tools, and he made they all seem like the tools are alive with personality by merely placing them in the right position, but altering nothing else. I can relate to the tools, have used them all before while building robots or fixing cars in high school. This is an art I can relate to, understand in my core. The large circular center room before this is also impressive: look up and you find Sargent watching over you, yet somehow you realize you are a full floor below where Sargent's work hangs. They have slanted mirrors in the center, so even from down here you can get a good look at the ceiling that hugs the walls.
There is an aspect of the building that is as obdurate and stolid as time eternal, and as knowledgeable: the guards that walk the halls and watch us. While naturally my attitude toward police like figures is not exactly renown, I am somehow not bothered by the guards. I think part of it is that they all wear suits. They don't wear imposing uniforms, or carry guns. They merely wear suits. Hell, I wear suits, if only because they look nice. They also don't pester you generally: they are as much the viewer to this collection, as you are, if not more since they get to view the art through the masses of people seeing art, a perspective that Walker Percy would claim helps restore the authenticity to the experience that is usually deprived. I know many of the ticket guards by face now: the Slovakian, the long haired hippie, the old man (though there are a lot of old men). If you talk to them they often know more than you'd expect about the artwork, though not all are very talkative. They same people man the bag check room day after day I've noticed, and it has become a comfort, the familiar employees lining the walls as I wander.
In the back of the museum, right behind the Fenway entrance, is this marvelous stone stair case that connects the second and first floor again. Built in memory of Robert Evans by his beloved wife, the concrete feels like an interior anquer for the rear of the building, hold down the Fenway entrance from disappearing all together. I'm fairly sure that his entire marble and granite stair case was transported from the old site of the museum by Copley, and that his very stair case was the first thing people would see upon entering: porcelain statues filling coves, paintings hanging from every flat wall. In the dark and murky old photos they have hanging around, it looks very enticing and mysterious. I would just love to have seen it when it was originally there so long ago. Yet because I'm more used to walking down from the second floor to the first when I visit (yes, I have my own routes I follow) I feel like it is lost on me the full grandeur that was designed into these steps.
Just to the proud left from here is the ticket desk. Each and every visit I have made to the MFA has began here, and like an old ritual I glide into line. My tickets are always free because I'm a student at an Avenue of the Arts college. A small collection of schools on Huntington Avenue that all have special partnerships with the MFA to provide free admission and discounts for students. I dread the day when this place is no longer free to enter, but at a cost only. To counter this I have already decided that when it is no longer free for me to enter, I will buy memberships and use them also as tax deductions, allowing me constant access to art as well as write offs for a great cause. The membership line is always pretty empty I've noticed, at least in comparison to the general admission line. The people behind the counter are friendly and more than once have bantered with me while I picked up my ticket. What I appreciate most about this aspect of the building is actually the LCDs on the wall behind them. I have walked through constant hall after hall while writing, and there are pieces of art in exhibits that are nice, but have not truly impressed me. Yet here on the hanging monitors, I find myself faced with art that I can tell I've seen, but somehow am far more impressed by. I blame this effect on the presentation: flashing screens and gliding colors help to contrast the random photos of art with information and color, like a moth to the light. Why had I not realized their majesty before? Part of what makes a museum so great is actually what makes it so bad. The way art is presented in endless hall after hall, side by side by side by side, creates a monotony on my sense, makes it hard to pick up on art that is more subtle. So every time I get my ticket, I state at the screens, hoping to be graced with a new impression of an old memory.
Following little plants like mile markers, leading me no where but providing a sense of the moment passing, I find the Sharf Visitor Center hidden in the middle. This could be called the operations headquarters of this ancient castle. Middle ages ladies are crocheting consumers questions, armed to the teeth with large mac desktops, and TV's all over the walls showing sideshows. There is a pamphlet here on the table near by about joining. Surprisingly they have no life membership option that I can find, so I ask. Apparently there used to be but it was removed (so they could make more money I'm sure). I also learn that they have 85 thousand members, but their members do not usually outnumber the many visitors who come and go. They explain to me the museums deal with the Avenue of the Arts schools, and smile. I ask them what role they feel they play in the community, in a few or less words tell me that their role in the community is that of an educator, helping to bring cultural importance to the masses. They say they provide this to everyone by making the museum from to all after 4pm on Wednesdays, by hosting rare traveling exhibits and shows. They have a movie theater for anyone to go watch a movie in. There is the book store for shopping, a cafeteria for eating, and they claim to be hallmark part of Boston, in so many words. This visitor center is something to behold itself. The overall conglomeration of customer service, technology, and spacious contemporary structural design make it a very pleasing room on the eyes. It reminds me of the ICA on the inside, very new and fresh and shining. I like it- like the smell of a new car. They have art in here too, not the room couldn't be called art alone: Jim Dine took etchings and sketches and lithographs of his tools, and he made they all seem like the tools are alive with personality by merely placing them in the right position, but altering nothing else. I can relate to the tools, have used them all before while building robots or fixing cars in high school. This is an art I can relate to, understand in my core. The large circular center room before this is also impressive: look up and you find Sargent watching over you, yet somehow you realize you are a full floor below where Sargent's work hangs. They have slanted mirrors in the center, so even from down here you can get a good look at the ceiling that hugs the walls.
There is an aspect of the building that is as obdurate and stolid as time eternal, and as knowledgeable: the guards that walk the halls and watch us. While naturally my attitude toward police like figures is not exactly renown, I am somehow not bothered by the guards. I think part of it is that they all wear suits. They don't wear imposing uniforms, or carry guns. They merely wear suits. Hell, I wear suits, if only because they look nice. They also don't pester you generally: they are as much the viewer to this collection, as you are, if not more since they get to view the art through the masses of people seeing art, a perspective that Walker Percy would claim helps restore the authenticity to the experience that is usually deprived. I know many of the ticket guards by face now: the Slovakian, the long haired hippie, the old man (though there are a lot of old men). If you talk to them they often know more than you'd expect about the artwork, though not all are very talkative. They same people man the bag check room day after day I've noticed, and it has become a comfort, the familiar employees lining the walls as I wander.
In the back of the museum, right behind the Fenway entrance, is this marvelous stone stair case that connects the second and first floor again. Built in memory of Robert Evans by his beloved wife, the concrete feels like an interior anquer for the rear of the building, hold down the Fenway entrance from disappearing all together. I'm fairly sure that his entire marble and granite stair case was transported from the old site of the museum by Copley, and that his very stair case was the first thing people would see upon entering: porcelain statues filling coves, paintings hanging from every flat wall. In the dark and murky old photos they have hanging around, it looks very enticing and mysterious. I would just love to have seen it when it was originally there so long ago. Yet because I'm more used to walking down from the second floor to the first when I visit (yes, I have my own routes I follow) I feel like it is lost on me the full grandeur that was designed into these steps.
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