in the Art Institute of Chicago
I’m thinking about impermanence. At a different time, I would think it mattered whether I liked it or not, but the world and reality do not care how I rate it in a scale of 1-10. Impermanence and change simply are.
Everything changes, everyone ultimately dies. I may be coming to grips with change — with this moment of change.
Today I am spending an hour with Monet at the Art Institute of Chicago. Monet dwelled with impermanence and change. I find the color changes in his collections over seasons comforting. I have favorites but they change over the years. In high school I saw my first Monet in person at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). It was Snows in Giverny. It looked like a textured canvas of white. I was perplexed by the comedy of throwing white on a canvas and calling it a snowstorm. A security guard advised me to go down the marble staircase and up the other side and look at it again. From that perspective and distance. I could see a field covered in snow with dark tufts of frozen grasses poking through it. And a building in the distance. Amazing. Down and up the marble staircase I walked. Peeking into the brushstrokes and the details and then regaining perspective. Intoxicating.
I’m here at the Art Institute while Rich works at the Marcoux’s. I walked straight from the entrance to room 243, reaching the room in 5 min. And I dedicated this hour to these 17 pieces — not even 4 minutes per piece.
Last time we visited, I think each piece consumed seconds of my time before I galloped forward to Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Hopper’s Nighthawks, Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon etc., Mary Cassatt, Van Gogh, Chagall, gotta catch ‘em all.
Today I circled the gallery and then I sat occasionally changing which wall I look at.
In the room women come and go
Talking of Gustav Caillebotte…
(that’s the current special exhibit)
I’m thankful for the special exhibit and wish more people would go take it in. It’s a Monday after lunch. I wonder when fewer people are here. I bet there are 50 people or more in here at a time admiring the Monets. And they say breathlessly, ahhhh Monet. I do, too. I’m not different from the other visitors. I’m just staying here long enough to take them in as well as the art.
An hour is becoming two. I wonder how to rent the room for a private viewing. Who does that? I can rent the museum for an event for $75,000. Well, that’s a challenge. I need someone to get me invited to someone else’s event.