My early art education was formed at the age of 10 by playing the board game Masterpiece, with Rembrandt’s face smack in the middle of the board and flip cards of great works of art by famous painters like Cezanne, Monet, and Picasso. It was one of our favorite games as kids and we played it over and over again. I realize that art historians and teachers might shudder at the thought of learning art through a board game, but this exposure made art very accessible to us neighborhood kids and it became part of our daily life. Subsequently in my life, I have seen almost all of the great works of art pictured in the game in various museums throughout the world and they have felt like familiar old friends.
I think the subject of looking at art, evaluating what you see, and then buying and ultimately collecting art can be intimidating for some of us. Where do we begin? How can we trust our judgment? Do we need a degree in art to truly understand it?
A few years back, the Northshire Bookstore hosted Thomas Hoving, the director at the Metropolitan Museum and author of the book, “Making the Mummies Dance”, an audacious behind-the-scenes memoir about his years at the Met. I was lucky enough to be in the audience that night as he gave a fully charged talk about his years as curator, apparently a wild and wooly job where he outmaneuvered the Smithsonian for the Temple of Dendur; saved an entire Prairie house by Frank Lloyd Wright now in the American Wing; and scored a 2,500 year old Greek vase that turned out to have been stolen from an Etruscan tomb near Rome which he fondly referred to as the “Hot Pot”. For me, he did two things that night – he made the art world an exciting place filled with piracy and forgeries and he gave us advice on how to evaluate art. His words have stuck with me every since. He said that a great work of art will “punch you in the gut”. You will actually feel it as well as see it.
Recently, my husband and I visited the Louvre museum in Paris. Bill, armed with the museum map with me trailing closely behind, did what everyone else was doing that day in the Louvre, taking off at break neck speed to visit all of the must see, great works of art. Taking a quick twirl around the Venus De Milo, bolting past Winged Victory on our way to the Mona Lisa we passed gallery after stuffed gallery in a gluttonous ode to the art world. We followed the largest crowd and got on line to shuffle past the postage size Mona Lisa placed on its own enormous wall behind a wall of glass. Exhausted, we were deposited in the Grande Gallerie of Italy. Slowing our pace, we were able to stroll the large gallery and just take in the surroundings. Then, there it was, a painting that “punched me in the gut” and drew me towards it. I did not even need to look at the tag that read “Painted by Leonardo da Vinci” to know I was looking at something incredible, I felt it.
So give this a try next time you are gallery hopping or pondering whether or not to buy a painting that catches your eye. When you see it, do you feel it? Trust your gut.
