Silence in Talk

Le Silence, 1900
Odilon Redon

to J.

I first saw the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon's work Le Silence at a museum somewhere on the coast of France during the summer of 1985 when I was backpacking through by myself. Yes, by myself for three weeks. I don't think I spoke ten words during that time, and it was glorious. The painting knocked me flat. I've called upon the peace of it, in my mind, hundreds of times since and most recently today after an exchange with a beautiful human being.

Thank you, J. And yes:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Pablo Picasso

Art Talk and Walk

On May 23rd, I posted an Ellen Bass poem with a copy of one of my favorite Matisse paintings, Open Window at Collioure. Today I actually saw the painting! I stood right in front of it, the window and the ocean and the boats and the green and the sky. The pinks and the blues made me tear up a bit. Here it is, straight on.

I went with Henry to check out the brand new Van Gogh to Kandinsky show at LACMA -- one of those blockbuster big-city art shows that's only bearable if you go on a Member's Preview day. This is a Gauguin:

I was struck, as always, by the excessive flesh of the women of the time, by how lovingly and reverently they were painted. No sinew or muscle or abs of steel. Dang. I was born in the wrong century.

It was a wonderful show -- not too many people and not too many paintings, all of them hung on walls painted the most beautiful shade of dark blue. Here's a wonderful Picasso sketch:

I rounded a corner and caught, from the corner of my eye, Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun. That definitely brought tears to my eyes. I didn't take a photo -- but I did walk back and look at it for a second time, along with the Matisse. I don't know very much -- o.k., anything, really -- about art, but certain paintings move me to distraction, and this is one of them.  Here's a copy from the internets:

The yellows, the green, the sun, the man's sickle and green clothes, that strip of blue mountain -- magnificent.

It's been a stressful, hairy two days and I was upset with myself for having reserved my two tickets (free with membership) for this afternoon, but I'm so glad that I went. Strolling around these paintings, listening to the murmurs of appreciative visitors and basking in color and vision -- it was just the thing to dispel some of that hair.

Notes

Pablo Picasso: Woman with a Crow, 1904

-- the kind of day where you pull into the school parking lot after muesli and seizures and loud humming, irritated by the dog-sized crows on chicken feet slapping across the pavement, and a tired brown Christmas swag with a dirty red ribbon on the back windshield of a car. Why can't they take that off the car? you wonder, reaching in your mind for the slingshot that will knock that hopping bird from his arrogant path.