museum day

The Louvre. What does it mean to you? Loooooooooooooo-v-ruh? The loo-f?

L. and I lost in the Greeks, than the wretched Dutch masters. Pan and close up: that lady and her smile. Da Vinci. Oath of the Horatii stretching upwards about one hundred feet--by which I mean 165 inches. L. and I shunted along one white ceiling wood floor gaping hall after another and people with cameras instead of faces flashing left and right and above and below. The point of a museum is not to see, but to prove that you have seen, that you have been, in hopes that by being and by seeing you have appreciated and are now become the sort of person who Understands These Aesthetics and Ideas In General. Cock a finger against your chin and frown. We all know now.

The single greatest semi-secret crime I might have ever committed was to spend only one hour (or was it an hour and a half?) in the Louvre. My eyes did skim and my heart did breathe in the drifting molecules of the old masters. This was (goodness) five years ago.

Outside, French police patrolled on roller blades when they weren't leaning against fences and staring at French girls.

Move ahead two years: New York (New YORK!) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Shall-we-call-him-Sheldon-just-for-the-fun-of-it and I, frozen to our wrist bones, inadequately coated for a winter day complete with sleet, suffering and being lost on the subway system. But we found the museum. Passed ourselves as students--not so hard, since that's what we were, but it was a small accomplishment in a strange town.

I recall a rapid progress of chairs and stumbling over some basement repository of assorted pottery. Madame X or Z or Y? Anyway, in black with red hair. And there was the J.Pollock taking up an entire wall before which I stood entranced for ten full minutes until I was made to move on.

(While we're on the subject of Jackson Pollock, go to THIS WEBSITE, but don't watch the video--unless you want to, it's god awful boring--just enter the site. Drag around and stuff and then click to get a different color. Hours of amusement!)

Two more years and we are somewhere outside of Portland--which, pause, reminds me that we should stay in Portland long enough to remark on the Ancient Egpyt exhibit that passed through and also the giant golden dandelion found on the apocalyptic modern art floor. This floor may or may not actually exist. We have never found it, nor its death camp oven elevators again.

But leaving Portland, heading south, we come to Today and the museum I walked to.

What little I know of art seems to point to the need for space, time, and integrity. Space: the art is not crowded, the day is not cramped, you are not bogged down with bags, cameras or other people. The need to compete in intensity of pretended interest might prove too strong, or the pressure to move on MOVE ON. Time: a few hours, at the least, so you can sit and watch the piece and (oh liberal hippie that I fear I am becoming) so the art can watch you and make you uncomfortable. Not that discomfort is necessary, but it is interesting. Integrity: the conscious concentration, the leaving aside of ego and boredom and most other distractions. Research might be necessary. Focus is also a part of integrity. Perhaps a scholarly mind only less soap-like.

This is not what I did. I hurried through. My excuse: I was so hungry. So perhaps along with time, space and integrity, we should add Sandwich Hidden in Coat Pocket.