Thursday, March 4, 2010
Old Brushstrokes
I went to the LACMA Art Museum today and saw two exhibits, "Renoir" and "American Stories." I'm grateful that I could get one inch away from these masters' brushstrokes. Hundreds of years separated me from the moment oil touched canvas, and yet they look so real and immediate they still took my breath away. Some pictures had me at hello. Their combination of colors, or the composition, or the subject matter were immediately pleasing. A pretty lady in a hat; a loyal dog; sisters playing the piano. Others were more challenging, made me look closer, deeper. Depictions of war, of famine, of slavery, of people who aren't, well, "pretty". I found some of the tiniest details the most impressive -- HOW could they capture a child's look, or the velvet on a chair, so realistically? How in the world do they get a ruffle to look so...ruffly? Conversely, how do all these seemingly random impressionist blurs -- not "realistic" at all -- give me such a sense of realism of a person or place? I am humbled and awed by it all. But not too grown up to giggle with my girlfriends at some of them -- we totally got the "shush" a bunch of times :)
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That's exactly what I think when I'm at a museum: shush, you silly girls! No, I actually think, like you, about that distance of time and, despite it, the visceral connection I feel. That's the magic of art!
ReplyDeleteI get in trouble EVERY TIME I go to that museum because I like to get so close they think I'm gonna touch it. It is amazing...you've captured it so well:) I wanna go!
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