Morandi at the Met

       On the train coming back into the city from the Dia Museum in Beacon I overheard a woman tell her seat mate, “Everything is going every which way”.  That seemed  a perfect summation of New York City.  F Train UpTown  to Manhattan/Queens transfers to the A, C,  4, & 5 Train. ‘Watch the closing doors please’. Downtown 6 train stops only on the weekdays. East bound L train to Williamsburg – West bound back into the city.  Everyone…everything… is going every which way. People coming down stairs and going up elevators; delivering, buying, selling, doing things respectable and unmentionable. Grand dames in long fur coats of every color and naked men relieving themselves in parks.  Polished granite buildings and store fronts tended by doormen and facades of glued bill postings and graffiti paint with doors that haven’t been opened in years. Smells of french brioches, steam vents, noodle shops and urine. A continuous exhale of steam and sounds.  New building and  old structures on streets both random and patterned. Restaurants that prep, cook, and wash dishes in spaces no larger than my closet. Trees, trash, trains, topiaries, gold, silver, brass, chrome, and beautiful women from around the world. Fourteen dollar glasses of wine and ninety nine cent pieces of pizza. Sushi and  pork shanks, italian sausages and french pastries. You only need to decide when and and how much you want. 

 Everything is going every which way and then you step into the institutions that for years have collected, cataloged, cared for and exhibited the greatest art works from around the world. You step in and things feel different.  You feel the presence of the art.  One of New York’s largest art institutions is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visiting it one first needs to accept that it is impossible to see everything you might want to see in one visit. Even if you limit it to just paintings, one should not try to see it all. Best to pick some of your favorites and spend time with them. Visit them like you would a wise sage or mentor.

 For most artists great museums are our churches. A place to regain spirit and to stand in awe of something. The sculptor Michael Heizer states that, “Awe is a state of mind equivalent to religious experience”.  A sense of awe certainly is felt in front of Claude Monet’s mural sized painting, “Reflections of Clouds on the Water Lily Pond”, (1920). Painted late in Monet’s life when he was 80 years old its as modern and energetic as Joan Mitchell’s paintings being shown at Cheim & Read in Chelsea. Monet painted ‘Reflections’  some 60 years before Mitchell’s  energetic work and both seem to be singing the same hymn in the same church.   Even harder to comprehend historically is J.M.W. Turners “The Whale Ship”. Painted in 1845 a full 75 years before Monet’s painting, “The Whale Ship” is a gnarly mass of paint marks, glazed exaggerated shapes and the blackest coal black I have every felt on a painting. It presence almost makes Monet’s painting seem conservative.

One of the largest in effect yet smallest in size paintings in the Met is Picasso’s  “Study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907). The finished larger work is Picassos’s most famous and seminal work but on the same wall is this little simple study, one of  hundreds he made in preparation for the famous work. Its as large as the big one.

Like a fish swimming up stream I was drawn in themes and interest to Cezanne’s “The Bather”(1883) and then to Matisse’s famous “The Red Studio”(1911) before being pulled to the modern rooms to stand before Philip Guston’s beautifully monstrous red in his “Stationary Figure”(1973) and “The Street”(1977).  I remember first seeing these paintings years ago and not knowing what to make of them because I wasn’t willing to be open to what they did. I just didn’t have the language.  Now I can hardly control myself from grabbing people as they casually pass by to say, “Ya but look at this”!  Almost directly across the room from the Gustons is Howard Hodgkin’s “When did we go to Morocco” and David Hockney’s “Large Interior” (1988) demanding their fair share of your attention. Two small Robert Ryman’s, typically all white, slam you aside before you want to jump back in time and space into the many wonderful Bonnard’s in the collection. I realized on this pilgrimage that Bonnard really just wanted to paint abstractly. He just could not let go of painting all those “things” he needed to paint with his colors and shapes. But beautiful ‘things’ they are.

Melanie and I spent several hours at the Giorgio Morandi Exhibition. This is a  painter’s painter exhibition that only comes around one is a great while. A monumental collection of the Italian painter who spent his life living with his sisters and painting his assortment of bottles and jars in his tiny studio. The paint seemed like ground italian earth (which I’m sure some of it was) blended to a rich butter creaminess. His body of work is a testament to an idea and a message to all artists that a simple idea can be explored for a life time. They beckon you as a painter and one can almost hear Giorgio say to you “See this is how I did it” as you look at his culmination of paintings.

And then its almost to much. You reach a saturation point. Too much beauty, too much inspiration. You have to retreat back outside onto the streets. Buts its not really a retreat. Its just more things moving, pulling you every which way. Excitement at what one both expects to happen and the joyous experience of the unexpected.