What do art lovers know that I don’t know? I’m still learning, and on holiday I’ve just learned more.
I am in London, where the British have free (link1) art galleries (link2) around Trafalgar Square with many priceless paintings: If I sold my home and car I still would not be able to afford any of the pieces, not even with all the earnings of my lifetime—which mi-i-i-ght make art sound important, bu-u-u-t my hard boiled friend could say, “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.”
An art student retorted, “Ya, and you like what you (already) know.” Now, during this last week, I am in awe of the increase in my understanding of art.
Back then
My understanding began when I was a younger man. Being unwilling to risk a proper liberal arts degree in these uncertain times, I took a full-time career program. There I covered my needed “artsy fartsy” credit by taking a class in History of Modern Art, a class of mostly Interior Design majors, that ran at night. Night! By the time my full-day career classes were done I was tired and grumpy at staying for yet another class. So I saved my sanity, each week, by shuffling into the campus bar with my back pack and empty thermos. The bar tender was amazed a how much beer I would drink before trudging up to my class: I needed any help I could bring—but the class was worth it. In fact, I would end each night as an involved teacher’s pet—non grumpy.
Over time, we learned that great art is like a classic poem: move one shrub (or word) and it changes every thing. Modern art is not a hoax, and if my city museum pays a lot for a “crazy” piece then it’s for the same reason professional athletes get “crazy” salaries: market value. We came to recognize artists who are household names even to regular people who don’t collect art; came to appreciate classic pieces we would come across again in media down the years—and before my very eyes in London.
I learned what my classmates already knew about how the eye travels around a painting, a frock or a piece of decorating: Because the teacher would put up a some art up on a big screen and then guide our eye with a laser pen. Sometimes she would leave a piece up for a while as she talked, and then point out how our appreciation had grown, beyond our initial glance. Great art will not reward people who say “too long, didn’t read” (or who are too addicted to speed to even spell out four words, and must use initials!) Years later I was reminded of my class when I read Jeanette Winterson: She compared unhurried art and literature to cats: They do not wear wristwatches. (Art objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery …a good airplane book for me)
Winterson was a typical writer and word-lover, and then one day, like being struck by lightning— she saw some art in a window. She already knew about classic literature taking time—read it at spoken word speed, she advises, not like skimming screens or newspapers—and now she found that paintings take time too: She eventually would spend an afternoon gazing on just two paintings. Twice this week I almost did that too—waiting for a matinee to start. My two favourites, both on wikipedia, are Lady Jane Awaiting Execution and Perseus.
This week
I was viewing a painting —Perseus and Andromeda are having a wedding feast when a rival and his gang burst in— called Perseus turning Phineas and his followers into stone. Beside me, on our bench, a young lady was drawing Perseus. Perhaps she thought I was simpatico because I was lingering so happily: She showed me a little note a girl had just passed her in appreciation of her art. Nice. I said “Do you know what a proscenium arch is? I just realized five minutes ago: The artist sneaked in a proscenium around the action. See?”
She said, “Wow. And that red at the top corner is like a curtain.”
I said, and it had taken me a while to notice, “The painter used three blobs of red horizontally at midline and bottom line….” Never mind what else I observed, because I would be too embarrassed to say: It turns out an expert who surely sees far more than I do talks for over ten minutes about the piece, on Youtube, but I haven’t heard him yet, because I won’t allow the blankety-blank computer-cookies he demands as payment. Meanwhile, at home I have no wall space for any smaller reproductions of Perseus. One may send away for a fine silk 42cm “pocket square” (business suit handkerchief) of the painting, but I choose to save my money.
Two days ago
My art knowledge has taken another leap as of two days ago, just north of Kings Cross station, when I attended an Immersive Art show. I had already attended such shows, in huge rooms, in Edmonton and Calgary, for Van Gogh and Monet, strolling with giant pictures changing, as period music plays. It was wonderful… But this was different. Not strolling, on opening day we crowded into a huge room to find a cloth bench or wall to sit down at. Unlike the other immersive artists I know of, David Hockney is still alive—he gave a running commentary! Not directly about the art we were seeing on the walls—although the art was curated to match his words and topics—but about his pursuit of vision in general. With his impressionism and funny colours and cubism, Hockney wasn’t faking it. He really did seek out, and portray for the rest of us, new ways of seeing.
Now, thanks to Hockney, I understand “seeing” a little better. Still learning. From the gift shop, I grabbed a transcript of what Hockney said: (prominent yellow book cover in this exhibit link) He explains things, as his immersive art transforms on the walls, in a way that I, a non-artist, can almost understand. I said, “Wow.” Quietly, in the dark.
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Sean Crawford
Over Greenland
February, July
2023
Student note: Down the years, several university student strangers, when I asked what their favourite class was, said “Art History.” At the time, I thought they meant “history,” since at the high school level, someone told me, history had been a glorified vocabulary course. But no, they meant “art.”
