Ma and I went to the Cleveland Museum of Art this afternoon to bask in some culture. We saw most impressive collections of art in beautiful galleries. One piece, however, really stuck in my mind. It was a Japanese scroll (ink on paper) from 1300. The subject was a humorous tale of a man with a talent — “musical flatulence”. Now, I can’t recall the story from memory, but there was something about his friends convincing him to consume a laxative . . . and something about him soiling himself during a subsequent performance [tee hee]. Anyway . . . I could imagine Sebastian and Caleb sharing such a tale as they walked along at Hocking Hills.
Oh, and in case you think I’m pulling your leg — SEE THE ITEM HERE .
My recollection was close, no?
Comment By: Ma
August 14th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
And I had a cultural epiphany! We started out in the Impressionist gallery, moved on to modern and contemporary art, where we were often scratching our heads or laughing or rolling our eyes and trying to understand what the hell was so significant about some of the incomprehensible art before us. THEN we went on to the European and American classical art and it hit me: Beautiful paintings, exceptional landscapes, lifelike portraits of 19th century people–but they didn’t really engage our brains! They were gorgeous, technically proficient renderings of various subjects, but they were largely eye candy! After a lifetime of aversion to contemporary art, I GET IT! I will always love classic artists, and I tried not to drool on the Rembrandts and Rubens and van Dycks, but I can view the contemporary works on a different level, and even appreciate them. Yay! I’ll still roll my eyes, and maybe I’ll be sneering, but I’ll be more likely to appreciate that the artist is forcing me to think about and interpret his work. I’m a slow learner, but maybe there’s hope for me yet…
Comment By: Pa
August 15th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Epiphany e-schmiphany, some of it’s still crap. For example, the 5ft-plus tall, black-on-black, oil-on-canvas painting inspired only one thought — “why?”.