An afternoon at the museum

Few things are calculated to make me feel my ignorance more keenly than a trip to the wonderful Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The place is a cultural treasure for our area and one that should be visited and enjoyed as often as possible. Even if it does make you feel stupid.

And so, to Houston we headed this morning, fighting heavy Friday traffic on our hour-long trek into the city.

The museum has expanded and renovated several times since my first trip there back in the 1980s. Today it is barely recognizable as its former self. Indeed, it has grown so that it is no longer possible to see it all in one visit - if it ever was. Looking at art takes time. You have to give each painting, each sculpture its due. You can't just rush through it. We hardly even made a dent in seeing what was available to us today and yet after a couple of hours I was completely overwhelmed.

The museum doesn't have any big A-list exhibitions right now. King Tut just closed and Rembrandt is coming next month, but just now things are a bit more low key.

They did have an exhibition called Modern and Contemporary Masterworks which we visited. It featured the works of avant-garde Latin American artists, some of whom I was somewhat familiar with - like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera - but many of whom were new to me. My overall impression of the exhibit was one of lush colors and movement, but I have to admit that many of the works were beyond my comprehension. A little too avant-garde perhaps.

I felt on much firmer ground with the antiquities, sculptures from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Mesopotamia. And I wonder what it says about me that I felt more at home in works that were 2000-3000 years old than in contemporary Latin American works? Probably just that I'm a hopeless old fogy.

We also visited the galleries featuring European art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. A disconcerting number (to me) of these paintings featured themes from the Bible. I found them disconcerting mainly because they were anachronistic. Like the picture of St. Paul writing at a desk with a bound volume open before him. A bound volume? Really? And, of course, there were all those pictures of Mary and baby Jesus, portrayed with blonde hair and blue eyes and beatific expressions. As Bob reminded me when I complained, these artists were trying to make a living. They had patrons and they painted what the patrons wanted, what they would pay for. The paintings are beautiful in their way and they exemplify the most exquisite technique, but art must touch something in the viewer to really be meaningful. These pictures just don't touch me. And what I said above about not rushing through art? I'm afraid I rushed just a bit among these galleries.

It was, however, in the European galleries that I saw my favorite picture of the visit.

Now, if I were titling this picture I would call it "Girl in a Red Hat" or maybe "Girl With Big, Sad Eyes in a Red Hat." The artist, though, called it "The Corn Poppy," apparently because the red hat, which is the dominant feature of the painting, was the color of the corn poppies with which he was familiar. The artist was Kees Van Dongen, a Dutch painter who lived from 1877 to 1968. He painted this picture in 1919. He was a Fauvist, a school of painting known for using rich colors, and his specialty was painting sensuous and sometimes garish portraits of women. He also painted with a sense of humor and I think you can see all of that in this picture. I remember my professor in a long ago art appreciation class telling us that all we should ask of a painting is that we find its color and lines appealing and that it has something to say to us. This painting speaks to me.

The other exhibit that we visited today was American Art: 1800-1970. These featured a lot of beautiful landscapes and story-telling pictures like the one of the Confederate soldier who has just found the body of his brother, a Union soldier, on a Civil War battlefield. Hard not to be moved by that. There were also portraits and still-lifes, many of them lovely, although none exceptionally memorable.

That was what we saw today, but there was so much that we missed. African Art, Asian Art, Pre-Columbian Art, Native American Art, Oceanic Art... Really, the mind boggles. Guess we'll just have to go back again.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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