A Stroll in the Gallery – Women in Art

I want to learn how to do the type of photo montage in this YouTube clip of Women in Art. I like the way rotating images produces the effect of turning heads and smoothes the segue from image to image.

It reminds me of a cherished scene I witnessed at the NGA in Washington. As a father holding hands with two young daughters marched triumphantly into the Rotunda, he quipped, “There you have it, ladies, 500 years of Great Art in half an hour!”

Hats off to Ms. Modigliani for showing me this one.

Missing Ms. Modigliani

Photo courtesy Eva Bozzato

Ms. M was spotted by the paparazzi somewhere near Ottawa. Her exact whereabouts remain a mystery. It isn’t Cannes, but it looks azure enough for me.

A Stroll in the Gallery: The Voyage of Life

Thomas Cole. The Voyage of Life: Manhood. 1842. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Looking at Thomas Hart Benton’s murals last week made me think about Thomas Cole’s panoramic series of allegorical paintings, The Voyage of Life. The series consists of four large paintings, not quite wall-sized but each deserving a wall of its own. Trying to imagine a room surrounded by Benton’s murals led me to remember the various galleries in which I’ve experienced Cole’s masterpiece.

The National Gallery of Art moves its collection around every few years, sometimes with disappointing results. You may expect to find old favorites in a cul-de-sac with a comfortable couch where you can contemplate quietly, only to find the paintings relocated to a busy thoroughfare. That happened to me in 2004, the last time I viewed The Voyage of Life. The paintings were hung in the museum’s southeast quadrant in a “vestibule” gallery leading to four other galleries. Four paintings, four walls, four doors, no couch – and a constant stream of chattering people moving in every direction. The location certainly had high foot traffic, and that would be good if the goal were selling Voyage of Life appointment calendars, umbrellas and tote-bags. High traffic, however, is reversely proportional to quality viewing. I missed the lonely cul-de-sac in the southwest quadrant where I’d spent hours looking, thinking, and writing about these paintings.

The Voyage of Life: Childhood; Youth; Manhood; Old Age.

When I first looked at Cole’s paintings I was but a callow youth, like the boy in the second painting, restless and ready to chase castles in the air. I didn’t care much for Cole’s allegorical content. Then and now, I thought the angel’s depiction as symbolic radiant light was contrived. But Cole’s sweeping landscapes caught my imagination. The contrast between dramatic foreground and limitless horizon never failed to move me. It is a painterly effect that may not be perceptible with the eye alone while standing in a real landscape. The effect also is perceptible to the heart, to some vestigial memory of place. It is the depiction of feelings provoked or inspired by the landscape. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries this quality was called ‘The Sublime.” If the angel seemed a little hokey, Cole’s treatment of distant shadow and light on the horizon was numinous. And yes, even as a callow youth, I knew and used that word. In time I came to know other painters from the Hudson River School whose style is called Luminist.

Cole’s allegory began to resonate for me only after my own bateaux had been battered in life’s cataract, as suggested by the third painting. Ms. Modigliani and I spent a rainy April afternoon with The Voyage of Life in 1999 shortly after my mother’s memorial service in Yellow Springs. We went to Washington to complete Mary Lou’s rites at the National Gallery of Art. I looked at the bearded man still standing in his boat, improbably, after a long, treacherous run through the rapids. I thought, that’s me, this is my life. Then I remembered a line from a poem by Yehudi Amichai: Gods come and go. Prayer is constant.

A Stroll in the Gallery: Venus with a Mirror

Titian. Venus with a Mirror. ca 1555. National Gallery of Art, Washington

In the same way Friday afternoons lead to Café Mouffe, Sunday mornings make me want to stroll through an art museum. Not a forced march, mind you, and not culture creep in a blockbuster cue, 20 seconds per viewer per painting. I want to stroll and be surprised. I want to visit old flames like Venus with a Mirror and rediscover passionate engagement.

Were I in Washington this morning, I’d take the Metro to the Archives stop and head for the Constitution Avenue entrance of the National Gallery of Art. I’d plan to arrive just before the grand bronze doors were unlocked. While waiting I might muse on the historical fact that President James Garfield was assassinated on the spot in 1881, when it was the site of a busy railroad station.

Then I’d sweep up the white marble staircase to the black marble rotunda. Returning to this glorious space never fails to move me. I find a bench, sit, and soak it in. Over the years I’ve chosen the rotunda with its cathedral light, its resplendent fountain and resonant echoes as the sacred place where I honor my parents. For me it is a place suffused with meaning and emotion, what Pierre Nora calls a lieu de memoir. Since I am now the steward of my parents’ Yellow Springs house, memories of them are always near to hand. I come to this soaring rotunda to celebrate their spirits. And I thank them for bringing me to the National Gallery of Art as a child.

After the rotunda I choose a direction for my stroll. I could turn east and head for the Monet gallery that is sure to hold Waterloo Bridge, Gray Day. Or I turn west and head for the Titians. The Monet gallery will have relaxing sofas and a stream of people passing through. Bracketed by innumerable Madonna’s with Child and popely/princely portraits, the Titian gallery may be the route less traveled. If there’s a sofa, too, it might be a hidden garden of delight.

I spent a week reading and writing in these galleries in the spring of 1999, three decades after my parents brought me here for the first time. Three months after my mother’s death, it became a spiritual journey to coming to rest here. (See the March 11 Stroll for Mary Lou’s most-cherished painting at NGA.) In the Monet gallery I’d try to read Paul Tucker’s biography of the painter, but I spent more time listening to snatches of conversation as others adored the paintings. I realized then that my experience of art in museums draws as much on the social context overheard in the moment as on direct visual perception. That’s how a half-blind flaneur looks at paintings.

In the Titian gallery I sank into the sofa and read John Hale’s magisterial history, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance. What a place to read such a book! I filled a notebook with writing about art and history. I paused often to gaze across the gallery at Venus with a Mirror. At a distance of 15 feet I couldn’t begin to see any detailed form beyond a blur. I knew the form; it was a lieu de memoir. What I could see, or apprehend, was the warm, rosy glow of the goddess’s skin.

When I first saw the painting at age 14, I learned how the experience of art could arouse me. Arouse is not a metaphor. Strolling through a museum with Ms. Modigliani is the most enchanting kind of foreplay on a rainy afternoon. At 14 I was amazed to think that Titian must have felt this way about Venus (and the artist’s model) when he painted her. He was approaching 70 then, and he kept the painting in his studio until the day he died. I have to smile now at callow youth and everything left to learn about the sensuality of old men.

At 14 I also apprehended something about painting that would take years to articulate. What makes an oil painting distinct from every other form of visual representation (including this digital image of an oil painting) is the way oil-based pigment absorbs light. Pigment not only reflects light, it absorbs it to some degree and depth, depending on the thickness of paint and varnish applied to the canvas. Titian may have been the first painter to discover how light could animate skin tones. Warmth of fleshly color, not erotic form, breathes the palpable, glowing life into his nudes. In this art Titian remains the master and Venus his muse.

Ten Years of Ardor for Ms. Modigliani

Amadeo Modigliani. Nude on a Blue Cushion. 1917. National Gallery of Art.

Happy Anniversary, Ms. M.!