Brush with Greatness
It was our last day in London and I had an agenda. There were paintings at the Tate museum I had yet to see, and, by jove, I was going to see them. I don’t recall exactly how long I spent in front of David Hockney’s “A Bigger Splash,” but I do remember practically running to take in the next painting on my list.
I think of that ridiculous afternoon often when I’m in a museum these days, particularly now that I’ve read about what art folks are calling “slow looking.” Connoisseurs probably don’t need to be reminded of the rewards of spending quality time in front of a painting—10 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? But the “slow lookers” urge everyone to do just that. Turn off the audio commentary. Don’t worry about the curator’s description. Try to forget that there are hundreds of pieces around the corner waiting for your hungry eyes. Just stand and take it in.
There are lots of things to think about when you’re “taking it in”: composition, color, the translation of personality into paint. But on a recent museum trip, I decided to get up close (much to the chagrin of the museum guard). I wanted to imagine the artist at work, centuries in the past, making one brushstroke after another. In Edouard Manet’s time, it was becoming okay for an artist to—as they say—show their work. In his 1866 portrait of “A Young Lady,” strokes of pink, white, gray and tan blend to create the pale salmon of the dressing gown. The texture is alive with motion, sheen, and subtle variations in color. The brushstrokes weren’t as obvious as in later Impressionist paintings, but they were there.
Two hundred years earlier, verisimilitude reigned supreme and brushwork wasn’t as cool. (Yes, art historians, this is pretty simplistic, but bear with me.) Finding the signs of the artist’s hand is trickier. In Peter Paul Rubens’s The Holy Family with Saints Francis and Anne and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, the figures are solid, fleshly—the infants characteristically plump and rosy-skinned. You notice the substance, not the brush. But look close at the swath of white fabric in the lower right of the composition and you’ll see the swoop and arc of Rubens’s brush, sculpting shape and shadow
In Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, layers of glaze and translucent color give the figures an etherial glow. The metal chain of the costume glints in the dim light, but it seems the work of a sculptor’s tools rather than a painters brush. But you can see Rembrandt at work in the drape of Homer’s sleeve. The strokes of paint are palpable: the motion of the artist’s hand, making mark after mark, the careful caress of bristle on canvas. It’s 400-year-old gesture recorded and preserved in paint that will remain for yet another 400 years.
Reruns
I was born in 1959 (cue Ringo: “When I get older….”) and I’ve seen a lot of movies since then: ‘60s family drive-ins—Support Your Local Sheriff!, The Incredible Mr. Limpet; high school popcorn movies—Star Wars (1977), It’s Alive!; college cult flicks—Harold and Maude, Monty Python and the Holy Grail; aspirational “intellectual Cinema” (the grad-school years)—Tokyo Story, Persona.
Michael Warren and Charles Haid in Hill Street Blues.
Tip of the iceberg, to be sure. Ditto for television series: Hill Street Blues, Seinfeld, 30 Rock, Six Feet Under, and yes, Johnny Quest!
But looking ahead, my viewing future isn’t so bright. “Peak Television,” the programming philosophy that brought us great TV, has run its course according to folks in the know. We are now entering the era of “Trough TV.” And Hollywood studios find it hard to finance edgy concepts that are box office risks. Sure, there are “IT” shows and movies forthcoming. Francis Ford Coppola and Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) each have one in the hopper. And I’m eager to see what happens now that The Bear has finally opened his long-awaited restaurant. But quality stories like these are apparently going to slow to a trickle
So what to do? If you’re like me, you look for new work by stars, directors, show runners you like to follow. Or you scroll around the home pages and take your chances, seduced by the expertise and hefty budgets of marketing experts that want you to click PLAY.
But why roll the dice? There are hundreds of “sure things” out there—tested by time, recorded and ready. I know what you’re thinking: “I’ve seen that already. But why not see it again?
Bette Davis in All About Eve
Yes, you probably know that Jack thinks Tom “can’t handle the truth.” That Bette predicts “it’s going to be a bumpy night.” And that HAL is not really interested in opening the pod bay doors. But a lot happens before and after those iconic movie moments. If you’re like me, you probably don’t remember the rest of it. You loved it once, you’ll probably love it again. Whether it’s Jerry’s “puffy shirt”, Agent Cooper’s “damn fine cup of coffee,” or the woman in the New York deli who’s having what Meg Ryan’s having.
Streaming services like Max or Netflix don’t make it easy to find the old stuff, but there are other options. Your local public library probably has a contract with a streaming service like Kanopy, which features a host of classic, foreign and independent films. If you haven’t tossed your DVD player yet, local libraries have shelves of discs to browse. A visit to the Turner Classic Movies website offers dozens of possibilities. During that network’s pre-Oscar celebration of award winners, you can watch everything from Liza in Cabaret, to DeNiro in Raging Bull, to Paul Robeson in Emperor Jones. So go ahead, play it again (Sam). Even though everyone know Rick never says exactly that.
Nina Conti
Speaking of old classics, when was the last time you saw a ventriloquist? Okay. When was the last time you enjoyed seeing a ventriloquist? Yeah, I thought so. I thought the same thing when I heard about ventriloquist Nina Conti’s The Dating Show, which has played to packed houses in New York for the last few weeks. I couldn’t get tickets on my recent visit, but Conti’s act is readily available on YouTube, which is a very good thing.
Conti’s brilliant tweak to the Charlie McCarthy tradition uses special masks to turn audience volunteers into flesh-and-blood “dummies.” Just like an old-fashioned ventriloquist, Conti supplies their “voice” and sets their prosthetic jaws a-flapping.
She is both ventriloquist and improv artist, and it’s wonderful to see the remarkable synergy that develops between Conti and her volunteer. She’s creating the conversations whole cloth, but eventually her “marks” play along, gesturing and performing with their puppet master as if possessed by a kindly but mischievous spirit.
Julio Torres
He’s a gay, vegan, fashion-forward Salvadoran immigrant. His comedy seems equally inspired by The Twilight Zone, Steven Wright, and The Surrealist Manifesto. And, of course, he’s the writer-director of one of the most anticipated movies of the year, Problemista. I hadn’t heard of him until he stopped by to promote his movie on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where his magical eccentricities were on full display. A story about a childhood game he played as a kid wound up with the line: “What child doesn’t love the concept of purgatory?” His 2019 HBO special, My Favorite Shapes, features a literal conveyor belt of absurdist sight gags that Torres explains with a deadpan sincerity. He reads for the diary of a cactus who suspects the previous occupant of his pot was the victim of foul play. He speculates about a moment when Fred Flintstone finds himself alone with Betty Rubble. He describes his curious approach to the alphabet—sometimes capital “E”s have three horizontal lines, sometimes four or five. Learning to write in school, Torres says, “I would treat E’s on a case-by-case basis.” Problemista opens nationally this weekend.
Culture Watch
Back when I worked in regional theater, I used to hang out with dramaturgs. We spent a lot of time sharing drunken tirades about the New York Times, which insisted on spelling the name of our profession incorrectly: “dramaturges”—Sheesh! We also jawed on about arts and culture in general. To help us keep up, we turned to the project of one of our comrades, Douglas McLennan, who started the website ArtsJournal in 1999. It’s a gathering of articles and blogs from around the world that have interesting things to say about the contemporary scene. A recent trip to the home page offered stories about Netflix becoming a Broadway producer, the restoration of the Sistine Chapel, a new John Waters movie, and Vladimir Putin using the composer Shostakovich as propaganda. If you’re an arts maven, it’s a great place to browse.
For the curious, here’s a recent post by Sunil Iyengar and Josephine Reed, two staffers from the National Endowment for the Arts, that revisits an interview with Isabel Wilkerson about her book, The Warmth of Other Suns.
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The Friday Five will be back on March 15th.