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Giverny, Blastulas, Monsters and Lunch |
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By Tom Gable
Teacher: “Class, what is obvious about this work by Terry Winters called Morula? And what isn’t? Examine the nuances—the range of colors; variations in dark and light; the textures. How are things organized? Angles, lines, curves.”
“I think it’s a testimonial to bowling.”
“That’s Venus and a moon, and a spaceship that looks like an artichoke getting ready to land.”
“Perhaps these empty blastulas are a metaphor for the artist’s life. Obviously he failed in depicting the rapid cell division of the zygote.”
Teacher: “Consider that those aren’t round objects on a canvas but rather holes— passageways to another dimension and intergalactic reproduction with alien life forms.”
“Dude. It’s dollar pancakes. When’s lunch?”
Teacher: “Adam Ross is a surrealist. Class?”
“Is that like a male realist?”
Teacher: “This artist seems to have a tormented Oedipal complex. The vertical objects show anguish in the contrast of round shapes hard by sails and swords. He’s submerged in the blue background of guilt. The angst, oh, the angst.”
“Must be Atlantis 2050. A city with magical properties rising from the ocean floor. Future light. Future life. Wish I was there!”
Teacher: “Class, this is Bottles, 1977, by Philip Guston, an abstract expressionist. Study relationships and depth. Contrasts in color.”
“Clearly a druggie’s view of litter in a flooded parking lot after a tailgate party at the Meadowlands. You can almost see New York City through the pollution.”
“It’s like that big bun on top of Gramma’s head, sinking into a swamp.”
“I see a Whopper on the grass with a couple of bags of fries and a thermos next to it. When’s lunch?”
“Madge, that reminds me. We need to stop by Costco on the way home and get more of that $6 plonk and kitty litter.”
Teacher: “This is contemporary art. Funnel, by Wendell Gladstone. Don’t touch the sculpture. It goes with the painting. What does it say?”
“A hurricane hit a paint factory and swirled the colors in a pattern, then dumped some of the plumbing on the floor.”
“That PVC sculpture looks like a dysfunctional sprinkler system put together by monkeys with carpal tunnel syndrome.”
“We are caught in a swirling vortex of both space and time, where nothing stops. We suffer endlessly, trapped by parts being pulled up from the earth and out of the walls. Everything is against us. We have no hope. God, I need another Prozac.”
“Madge, imagine that pattern in tile on the bottom of our new pool. Or over the toilet in the powder room. I love the colors and the feeling of motion. It has such positive energy!”
Teacher: “This is Stuart Davis, a cubist. Do you remember what a cubist is?”
“They don’t like detail.”
“People with one eye and big noses.”
“If he was a realist, he would have lined the streets with cars, litter and derelicts. Broken a few windows on those tenements. And made it dark and dingy since they’re living under the friggin’ railroad tracks.”
“Looks like a cool street where Spiderman lives.”
Teacher: “Does anyone remember the impressionists we discussed? No, I don’t mean Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live. What about Monet? The haystacks? This American, Guy Rose, studied under Monet in France. He captures late afternoon at Giverny.”
“I get the trees and bushes in front, then everything fades into a mist at the bottom of the hill. Condos with their lights on? A bunch of monsters with huge eyes lined up walking through the swamp?”
“Kind of like watching TV after a couple of doobies.”
“Gerald, our eucs definitely need pruning.”
Teacher: “Poster art was another popular form in the early 1900s. Remember Toulouse-Lautrec and Moulin Rouge?”
“The dwarf who got all the hot chicks?”
Teacher: “Here’s a Maxfield Parrish work from the golden age of illustration, Young Girl in a Landscape, from 1918. Ah, the beauty, the flow of the colors and shapes of the lake, the mountains and sky, what is said and isn’t said.”
“Sitting alone on that rock. No iPod. No book. No phone. I mean, she has to be totally bummed.”
“Looks like those paintings they have bolted to the walls in hotel hallways.”
“It’s the opening scene from a horror movie. A wall of slime is going to surge out of that water and grab her. The search party will come looking and be eaten, too. Then, goodbye, Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force atom bombs. All eaten.”
“Dude, lunch?”
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