Culture Infusion

The author in front of the museum

There must have been a small pile of parts left over the day I was created. That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to explain the glaring lack of an artist’s bone in my body. It’s long been apparent to me that some other lucky person on the September 1953 baby production line got mine, and I was stuck with a double measure of pragmatist bones.

Please understand, anyone who got the extra artist’s bone: I know that art appreciation can be learned. I took a class or two in college and enjoyed them. The information just didn’t stick. So while I fear being branded an artistic dimwit, I confess that I like my art to look like what it is supposed to represent. And I like it done with finesse and attention to detail, please.

A Picasso (yes, I got in trouble for using a flash)

Such were my musings today as Curt and I strolled the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago. We started with the easier stuff: the great masters of the 18th century. I marveled at the attention to detail, the realistic portrayals. In my gradebook, nothing earns a painting an A+ faster than intricately painted lace cuffs and perfectly rendered coils of hair. I could be heard musing admiringly, “It looks almost like a photograph!” Realism does have its drawbacks, however. It was difficult for me to imagine a practical way to display, for example, a finely and intricately wrought painting of a guillotined head by Gèricault. My best guess is that a true artist doesn’t worry about such mundanities as where it will look best in the living room.

Then we moved on to the Impressionists. Things started going a little haywire for me here, because while Monet and his ilk are widely admired for their pioneering methods, Monet’s works failed to excite in me a fervor for the nuances of finely stacked hay in various lighting situations. The subject is realistic enough for someone of my mindset; it’s just the lack of details in the execution that puts me off. 

The Lipchitzes: Is this how you'd want to be memorialized for all time?

We finally made our way to the highly lauded new modern wing of the museum, housing contemporary art, which opened just over a year ago. We could appreciate the merits of many of the pieces, though others completely befuddled us. The Picassos are interesting for their bizarre composition; other pieces simply caused me to scratch my head. One enormous piece, probably 10 by 16 feet, was all black with some plaster texturing in places on the canvas. And there was Modigliani’s portrait of a Mr. and Mrs. Lipchitz (pictured). How P-O'd would you be when the artist showed you this finished portrait and handed you his bill for services rendered?

"Venus de Milo with Drawers" by Salvador Dali

While I don’t have a framed poster of dogs playing poker in my home, I actually kind of get why people are drawn to that type of art. But lest my readers think me a hopeless reverse art snob, let the record show that right this minute I am looking at an abstract Picasso print on my office wall, which I like very much. It complements the stickers-on-construction-paper composition of moons, planets and spaceships created especially for Grandpa by our grandson Will, hanging on the opposite wall. I know which of the two speaks to me more.

But I know you’d love our black velvet Jimi Hendrix portrait. Now that’s great art.