My
wife and I have likely always been interested in art, but it’s become something
more than an interest in the last few years.
In
1999, during a belated 25th anniversary trip to Holland and France,
we made sure to see the Rijksmseum
in Amsterdam, if for no other reason than to see Rembrandt’s the Night Watch,
then simply on display but today in its
own special gallery. In Paris, we had to contend with the state workers (including
museum workers) staging wildcat strikes (we quickly learned what “en strike”
meant) but through constant rearranging of our schedule and a careful eye for
what looked opened still managed to see The
Louvre, the Musee D’Orsay
and the Picasso Museum. Later
that same year, on a business trip to Brussels, I hurried on arrival to see the
Royal Museums of Fine Arts,
despite severe jetlag.
In
2005, our week in Montreal included the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts. Three years later, while in Chicago to see my wife’s
favorite singing duo Chad & Jeremy, we managed to find time for a joint
exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago – Edward Hopper
and Watercolors
by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.
For
the last three years, we’ve spent two weeks in England, mostly London, and
discovered that art and new exhibitions never stop in that great international
city.
In
2012, it was Edvard
Munch: The Modern Eye at the Tate Modern; the Turner
collection at the Tate Britain; the Courtauld Institute of Art; the Ashmolean in Oxford; and the National Gallery. Perhaps the
highlight of all of it for me was finding a painting I fell in love with at the
Tate Modern: Marguerite
Kelsey by Meredith Frampton (1928). In 2013, we were able to see Vermeer
and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure at the National Gallery on its
closing day; The Queen:
Art & Image at the National Portrait Gallery (and the gallery itself); and
L.S.
Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life at the Tate Britain.
This
year, we were able to Late
Turner: Painting Set Free at the Tate Britain; the Wallace Collection (including The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals); and the Anselm Kiefer
exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art. We had planned to see the John
Constable exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum but my
back problems (and the subsequent two days of vacation plans lost) forced
us to drop it from the itinerary. We did manage to get to Blenheim Palace and not only see the
palace but the Ai
Weiwei exhibition there as well.
And
this year, we didn’t have to travel at all to see a wonderful exhibition at our
own St. Louis Art Museum, Impressionist
France: Visions of Nation from LeGray to Monet.
Yes,
art has become increasingly important to us. I’ve read that this is not uncommon
s you get older. Perhaps it has to do with more leisure time (and grown
children). But, for me, it also has to do with something else, and it took me a
while to figure it out.
Art
surrounds my writing.
Music
has been a powerful influence on my two novels, but art surrounds virtually
everything I write. I read a lot about artists; I love non-fiction works on
painting thefts and frauds (not to mention movies like The Monuments Men).
I just finished reading a book on the art of Anselm Kiefer and am currently
reading one on the paintings and life of Edward Hopper. And it was not a
coincidence that the Sarah, the heroine of Dancing
Priest and A
Light Shining, is an artist, and that her painting gets caught up in
her crisis of faith.
This
idea of what surrounds your writing is not an idle one. In On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing
Life That Lasts,
Charity Craig (co-author with Ann Kroeker) says this: “If I’m not surrounding
myself with people and books and experiences that inspire and connect with me,
I may be left wondering what to write about.”
For
me, it’s art that surrounds my writing.
Illustrations: Top, Railroad Bridge,
Argenteuil, oil on canvas by Claude Monet (1874, St. Louis Art Museum); lower
right: Marguerite Kelsey, oil on canvas by Meredith Frampton (1928; Tate
Modern); lower left, The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (1624; The Wallace Collection).
