A week ago I was 90 years old. I had just come from Scavenger
Hunt at the Metropolitan. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
Why granny?
Scavenger Hunt: win or lose. Hurry up! Please find the right
answer. Rush and cultivate yourself.
Right now I’m looking to this Edo Period Painting at the
Metropolitan Museum. (This is the third time). It is full of flowery waterfalls
and bloody worriers holding swords, but they look frozen. Fluid flowers framing
frozen samurai.
How to look at
pictures?
“Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the
things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long”, wrote Chesterton in
his book “Tremendous Trifles”. He is telling us how to look at pictures, how to
look around us: with microscopic eyes. The world becomes too large. We, then,
widen our eyes. Open your eyes (wide open eyes) too receive - patiently - the
immenseness of lost worlds.
If time is money, then you must rush! If you don’t want to
rush, sit yourself or walk like a snail. Dive slowly into each picture.
"The Flowering of Edo Period Painting" at the Metropolitan (galleries 225-231): http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/edo-period-painting
ReplyDeleteWhat a professionally lovely observation! Indeed colors speak to artists. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting comment. Yes, the Metropolitan can just be exhausting if people try to do too much on one visit. I took another school group there, and they decided they just wanted to look at one portrait room in the American Wing for more than an hour! They don't have your eye for art, or your training, but that is how they felt comfortable, like they were getting to know the people in the portraits.
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