Art museums are silent, no matter what age the art might be. Ok, some contemporary art might make noise, but it usually does so in a confined area, so that no one confuses it with theater, its poorer cousin.
Actually, the visitors do talk a little, but it’s under their breath and if a guide with a group comes along everyone nearby hushes and leans in. Maybe we will find out some truth we didn’t know before. We act like we’re not listening, but we really are. And the priest/docents are benevolent, in a limited way. They know we want to be privy to their knowledge, but we didn’t meet them at the front desk. We may listen for a few moments, but when the group moves on, we are clearly not allowed to join.
With some art you know what you’re looking at. Other art, it’s not so easy. Sometimes, there’s no understanding it at all. You are flummoxed, but you feel improved somehow.
I’m pretty sure I was converted in Firenze. I could make the case that the whole town is a museum, and that when I stood at dawn in front of the glowing tiles of the Baptistry the angels sang a song only for my ears. But probably it was the Uffizi galleries that initially brought me to my knees… at sixteen, Botticelli and Jim Morrison were my main men. They kind of look alike, come to think of it. I also loved the idea that a museum would develop out of the family business’ company offices.
Ah, but that is the part of the charm of the art museum. The Louvre is a castle, for god’s sake. And the first time I was there that’s what I was looking for: a castle. “Ou est la louvre?”. People kept pointing this wall out to me: “Ici! Ici!“. (Insert Angry French Person’s Voice) I didn’t get it. Finally an English speaker found me, the wall was the Louvre. I was just a neophyte in the museum world, and on my way toward the abolishment of my sins. But now Pei’s glass pyramid points the way like a burning bush. Except you go down into its bowels instead of up a mountain. And what you find down there is a REALLY OLD castle! Exactly the one I was looking for, back in 1970!
Peggy Guggenheim’s stuff is in a half-finished palazzo on the Grand Canal. Peggy was certainly an apostle of art, in her ranch style digs where her happy dogs are laid to rest. Peggy inspires me to be an artist. “Do anything”, she seems to say, wearing her winged sunglasses and placing a soft hand upon my head. “It’s new, it’s alive, whatever it is, it’s art! I will appreciate its worth by buying it and placing upon it my stamp of approval. Go in peace, my child, and be an artist. You are now famous by your very proximity to me.”
Now that I’m older, I find it’s also important to take communion in my various houses of worship: a cappuccino in the Pitti Palace, a latte under the big clock in the D’Orsay, even a lukewarm American coffee in the sculpture garden at the Norton Simon. Then I can return to the Rothko on the wall, and I understand what God is trying to tell me.
Hey... that Guggenheim in New York looks like an espresso cup.
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