We engineers lose out a lot when we're stuck in our rooms doing nothing but solving equations. Sure, there's internet and there's music, but there's art too, but not many people are into that.
Art isn't just a pretty painting. It ties together history, observation, ideas, themes, and beauty. Sure, you can find any number of books to teach you how to appreciate and identify artworks, but there's nothing like the experience of being face to face with a beautiful artwork and having an interactive session with someone who's involved deeply with art and with teaching people about it.
This is probably why I was never quite as impressed or excited about museums and their collections back home. Sure, there were loads of things, and loads of beautiful things, but unless you have that human touch, of someone who knows and understands the significance of those things, and can convey that opinion (if you don't want to call it anything else), you can't really begin to form an opinion of any depth of your own. I now have had the opportunity to go through a museum gallery guided by someone, whose particular interest it is to cultivate interest and curiosity, and most of all, wonder, in others, in appreciating the richness of the legacy passed down to us, and it was a wonderful opportunity and experience.
Art isn't just paintings. It's also about sculptures, scrolls, costumes, furniture, and just about anything that conveys the aesthetic bent of the mind, or rather of the collective mindset that represents a particular era. This mindset is very fickle; it will change even from decade to decade, but that change isn't an unwelcome thing, because it makes for progress, for innovation, for a new kind of creativity to take birth and shape itself.
I had read about Renaissance art, and something about the artists whose works defined that period, and in fact, sub-periods within that period. But this occasion, I was face to face with a painting from that period. I was asked to describe what I saw in that painting. It was from the early Renaissance. What did we notice? There was a prominent solid gold background, solid gold halos about the figures, very rich and vibrant colours, though darkened with time due to the use of tempera colours, an extravagantly larger size for the more important figures in the painting, a triangular shape for composing the figures, a lack of three dimensional perspective (depth). The figures themselves were of the Virgin Mary, the baby Jesus, and saintly figures of their time. Each figure was distinctly identifiable by certain accessories that were peculiarly assigned to them; for example, the Virgin Mary is always clothed in a red robe, symbolizing the sacrifice by her baby Jesus, and a blue cloak, symbolizing her exalted status (certain exotic shades of blue were a very expensive pigment to make, especially if you made it from lapis lazuli or the like). These are tiny things, but they make all the difference.
The next painting was also of the early Renaissance, but at an advanced stage, perhaps thirty years later. What was similar or different between it and the older painting? The same figures of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, with saints, but with more figures this time, including angels and women. The same gold halos and solid gold background, but this time with a sense of perspective, with arches and platforms added to give a sense of depth to the painting. The same use of tempera colours, but with a little more delicacy.
The next painting was a complete contrast. It belonged to the high Renaissance period. Again, the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus. But, there was now a background, of a village, a hill, a river, an entire countryside. A deliberate arrangement of ledges and steps, to give both a sense of depth, as well as a sense of immediacy, as though you could reach out and touch the figures. The materials were oil on canvas, which led to the portrayal of much finer detail than is possible with tempera on wood. The halos which so blatantly declared divinity were now simply reduced to faint gold circles, to convey a subtle message rather than a blunt one. The colours were still rich, but now more subtle, with folds and curves very delicately worked out. The figures were of proportionate size, but the triangular composition style was still preserved. The entire mood of the painting was one of peacefulness and serenity, which are rather human qualities. Compare this to the earlier paintings, which you could say were intended to inspire respect and awe for the divine figures that they were portraying. The focus in this painting was on realism, trying to show things realistically, exactly as they are.
The next painting was again different! It was of the period of Mannerism, where the focus was on showing the manner of things. This one again featured the Virgin Mary, with baby Jesus, but equally prominent was her cousin St Elizabeth. Also shown were John the Baptist and two angels. The mood was one of violence, fear, concern, anxiety. John the Baptist was dying, and painted in the classical pose. The two angels were in shock. Jesus was afraid, Mary was unhappy, and Elizabeth looking very grim. The figures were all disproportionate (Jesus, who would've been only eight months old or so was almost the same size as Mary) and muscularly built. There were no fine details, only broad swathes of colours and tiny lines that combined to produces the general effect of figures. There was no background, no intention to convey depth, no halos, no calmness or serenity, no delicacy or subtlety. A cursory knowledge of the events of the New Testament tells us that this is the point when Elizabeth warns Mary that her son would be killed, with this idea being conveyed to the viewer in the form of John's dying posture, John being a sort of precursor to Jesus and their lives running on somewhat parallel lines.
This, I then understood, was appreciating art. Not merely admiring it for its aesthetic beauty, but also understanding its significance in relation to the life of the people when it was created, and the purpose for which it was created. That tends to lend it a fuller quality, and your appreciation then gains some substance, much like the way you would admire someone better when you can see their intelligence aside from their good looks.
The next leg of the tour explored American Art, and its evolution from the time when the country was born until the second world war. The art from the various time periods in American history reflect the ongoing themes and turbulence of the times, as all art does. A young country that has just started to take shape is fresh with the ideas of exploration, patriotism, innovation, individualism, aspiration to perfection, and utilitarianism, and this is precisely reflected in the artworks of that time.
We started with portraits of famous and prominent figures, which were just that: portraits; paintings by skilled artists to immortalize the subjects of the paintings. The centerpiece of the gallery was the bust of George Washington, portraying him in a stern and serious mood, as an orator, a statesman, a man with a huge responsibility on his shoulders. Equally striking were the paintings of famous landscapes, showing exploration of the new territories that would form part of the young country, as well as paintings of scenes of patriotism arising from both the War of Revolution as well as the Civil War, the most striking of which was the painting of Lady Schuyler burning her fields.
This latter painting shows a young woman, Lady Schuyler, picking up a torch and preparing to set fire to the wheat fields behind her, as her husband helps and her daughter watches, along with another young woman and (presumably) a young slave boy helping. Lady Schuyler is the most prominent figure, dressed in white, blue and red (the colours of the flag, and hence of patriotism), deliberately placed in the centre and given a very discernible triangular composition, in spite of the figures all around her. The scene is easy to understand given the context; the family has learned that British troops are approaching, and rather than be conquered, they would set their fields on fire before they fled to warn others, so that no resources would be left behind. One doesn't know how true the story is, but the painting serves to portray and inspire patriotism, in a very symbolic way, and must have conveyed the same ideals throughout time, wherever it was displayed.
Also striking was a certain quilt made by a pair of young ladies for their home, beautifully crafted and carefully preserved. It may seem odd for something as simple as a quilt to be displayed in a museum, but remember that art is anything that's beautifully crafted by human hands. Quilts were in fact rather important items in early American history, indeed there were customs such as quilt-making parties that served to foster community bonding. The women of the household typically made all the household linen themselves, or at least for ceremonial occasions, and both men and women got together for quilt-making parties and each one would make one part of the quilt, the whole being put together when everyone was done. This particular quilt was probably made for a ceremonial occasion, given that it has come to us so well preserved.
It was formed in the main of two kinds of motifs, one being a simple yet elegant flower motif, probably signifying growth and flourishing of the community and the nation, the other being a rework of the bald eagle emblem, complete with drum and other attributes. The pattern was laid out in nine squares, four bearing the emblem motif and five the flower motif, symmetrical in layout, though each individual motif was not quite symmetrical, with the whole being bordered by a simpler flower and leaf pattern. The colour theme was white, with pink, red and green used for the flower motifs. These colours were also symbolic of prosperity and continuing stability. Most interestingly, the word LIBEBTY was worked into the eagle motif, though whether the spelling was deliberate or accidental we may not know. One might suspect it was deliberate, because of the custom amongst craftsmen out of humility to never allow anything crafted to be absolutely perfect, because only the Creator is held to be perfect, and challenging his perfection is to invite trouble.
And this museum is a publicly funded museum, which means around half its operating budget comes from public taxes. The rest has to be raised through private donations, as do the collections themselves, because a museum operating on public funds does not have the kind of money that private museums or vanity museums do, for purchasing works of art. A publicly funded museum cannot spend 15 billion dollars for one painting, the way a private museum could. The collection is thus painstakingly built up, over decades, by convincing people to donate money and fund the museum's activities, including helping it acquire pieces for the collections, as well as donate their own collections as a civic responsibility. The dynamics of how this works also add to the awe you feel as you walk into such a place.
Museums are all about preserving history. Preserving, as best as we can, every representative material piece of the past, and recording our history through each of these pieces. An art museum simply preserves history through the arts, adding a touch of the aesthetic to our sense of history.
(My experience courtesy the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the University of Southern California)
