Sunday, December 09, 2007
Friday, December 07, 2007
Saturday, December 01, 2007
In Safe Hands
Two days ago I visited the Musée d’Orsay.
This place is absolutely humbling. Within hang some of the most famous paintings and sculptures ever known to mankind.
The list is incredible. Here’s a brief—brief—sampling:
* Camille Pissarro — White Frost
* Édouard Manet — Olympia, The Balcony, Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets, The Luncheon on the Grass
* Edgar Degas — The Parade, also known as Race Horses in front of the Tribunes, The Bellelli Family, The Tub, Portrait of Edouard Manet, At the Stock Exchange, L’Absinthe
* Paul Cézanne — Apples and Oranges
* Claude Monet — The Saint-Lazare Station, The Rue Montorgueil in Paris, Harmony in Blue (Cathedral series)
* Pierre-Auguste Renoir — Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre
* Vincent Van Gogh — Self Portrait,The Church at Auvers, Starry Night Over the Rhone
* James McNeill Whistler — Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, also known as Whistler's Mother
I walked the halls in sheer astonishment, seeing the very paintings that were in my artbooks at fine arts school, subjects of my art history classes, probably unseen only by a third of this planet, right there in front of my face. I literally gaped in awe.
I mean, Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass”? Renoir’s “Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre”? Could anyone—anyone—put a price on these paintings? Two hundred million? Five hundred million? A billion?
I was even more astonished, therefore by the fact that they were literally right in front of my very face! Inches away! “Ah,” you say, “inches away through the protective glass barrier.”
No. No barrier. In fact hardly any barrier at all—just an ankle-high black wire about four feet from the wall. I could have stepped over it and in two seconds be feeling the texture of, say, Van Gogh’s “Self-portait.”
This painting alone must be worth over a hundred million dollars. A hundred million dollars.
Okay, there were men with machine guns stationed at every door, or at least beefy security guards with guns in each room.
Try university grads. That’s right, as I type, a university grad is protecting Whistler’s Mother. One in each room, to be sure, but these kids couldn’t guard a Starbuck’s.
But then it hit me in a flash: I knew why this was the case. They had expert reproducers paint from the real painting and have the real ones all locked safely away in a vault in the basement.
That, my friends, is all I can figure.
Maybe I should have stroked Vincent’s face, because he's turning in his grave.
This place is absolutely humbling. Within hang some of the most famous paintings and sculptures ever known to mankind.
The list is incredible. Here’s a brief—brief—sampling:
* Camille Pissarro — White Frost
* Édouard Manet — Olympia, The Balcony, Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets, The Luncheon on the Grass
* Edgar Degas — The Parade, also known as Race Horses in front of the Tribunes, The Bellelli Family, The Tub, Portrait of Edouard Manet, At the Stock Exchange, L’Absinthe
* Paul Cézanne — Apples and Oranges
* Claude Monet — The Saint-Lazare Station, The Rue Montorgueil in Paris, Harmony in Blue (Cathedral series)
* Pierre-Auguste Renoir — Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre
* Vincent Van Gogh — Self Portrait,The Church at Auvers, Starry Night Over the Rhone
* James McNeill Whistler — Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, also known as Whistler's Mother
I walked the halls in sheer astonishment, seeing the very paintings that were in my artbooks at fine arts school, subjects of my art history classes, probably unseen only by a third of this planet, right there in front of my face. I literally gaped in awe.
I mean, Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass”? Renoir’s “Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre”? Could anyone—anyone—put a price on these paintings? Two hundred million? Five hundred million? A billion?
I was even more astonished, therefore by the fact that they were literally right in front of my very face! Inches away! “Ah,” you say, “inches away through the protective glass barrier.”
No. No barrier. In fact hardly any barrier at all—just an ankle-high black wire about four feet from the wall. I could have stepped over it and in two seconds be feeling the texture of, say, Van Gogh’s “Self-portait.”
This painting alone must be worth over a hundred million dollars. A hundred million dollars.
Okay, there were men with machine guns stationed at every door, or at least beefy security guards with guns in each room.
Try university grads. That’s right, as I type, a university grad is protecting Whistler’s Mother. One in each room, to be sure, but these kids couldn’t guard a Starbuck’s.
But then it hit me in a flash: I knew why this was the case. They had expert reproducers paint from the real painting and have the real ones all locked safely away in a vault in the basement.
That, my friends, is all I can figure.
Maybe I should have stroked Vincent’s face, because he's turning in his grave.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)