PRELUDE

In decades past I have received some responses to my artsy correspondences. The NY Times published: my alternate critique of the film “Muriel,” and also my letter to the editor with my disapproval of baseball’s damnable Astro Turf. The MOMA did not thank me personally for correcting their mistaken title for an etching in their extensive Picasso retrospective–but they corrected the exhibit’s wall label. The French Cezanne Society didn’t respond to my correspondence regarding the significance of Cezanne’s “angry patch.”

But from time to time I persist in my artsy correspondence.

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In recent years, in ARTSY FARTSY additions to my Jean Shepherd blog essays, I’ve mused upon my multitudinous, multifaceted, kaleidoscopic, accumulated, bundled, (Shepherded), chockablock adventures in the wide world of art. A veritable phantasmagoria, assemblage, collage, heterogeneous anthology/mosaic, a teeming brew of all-sorts-and-conditions—everything-but-the-kitchen-sink throng of art-life. (For the assist, thank you, Thesaurus.)

Authentic hand-typesetter’s drawer.  Rows top to bottom–

a selection of inhabitants partly evoking

the multiplicity of my ARTSY potpourri.)

1. Tiny chambered nautilus shell; tiny calipers;

2. found white rock with spiral incision; strangely corroded sink stopper;

3. Mexican pre-Columbian 4-note whistle in shape of stylized bird;

found white rock in shape reminiscent of a Henry Moore;

4. broken pre-Columbian animal head;

brass octopus part of a samurai sword handle;

ancient ammonite fossil sliced to show spiral chamber formation;

5. in bottle, a segment of my initials-soundhole-rosette for guitar;

full pre-Columbian figure on plexi stand;

another sliced ammonite in a box; tiny bubble-level;

6. miniature Dutch cups;

7. wooden pawn from chess set I turned on a lathe;

small ammonite fossil; teeny ammonite fossil.

I’ve now sent off three missives within two days of each other that I realize express my unending delight in searching for ARTSY-like satisfactions.

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MUSEUM OF MODERN ART CEZANNE-WISE

On my artsys of August 17, 2016 I discussed my revolutionary discovery, excerpted below.

CEZANNE’S “ANGRY PATCH”

One day decades ago I was calmly—but with much interest—reading an article in the-then widely read American Artist magazine about one of my favorite painters, when I got on my emotional hobbyhorse. The author was obviously an authority on art and an admirer of Cezanne, but I was dismayed when I encountered his comment regarding a major painting:

“Cezanne…must have had moments of inattention, even of exasperation, in front of his canvas in the heat of Provence. What else explains that angry patch, quite out of tone, on the sky ?”

 I wrote him a polite but firmly reasoned letter in care of the magazine and received a letter from him appreciating my well-considered thoughts, but still disagreeing with me. The magazine printed parts of our exchange, including this by me:

That is not an angry stroke but a consummate stroke of genius which, in Cezanne’s composition, culminates the movement of the eye up into the painting through a series of dark areas of diminishing size. Without that “angry” stroke the light mountain peak and sky would visually blend and the eye not move up the “realistic” picture to the peak….that dark stroke of genius ties the light band of sky to the rest of the composition.

The magazine also printed part of his disagreement. Although the article’s author didn’t suggest that Cezanne or any other artist was “crazy,” many people probably think that artists, if not crazy, tend to be overly emotional—irrational. I recognize that creators sometimes get mad or angry, but I doubt that they let that emotional state detrimentally influence their art.

It’s my understanding that Cezanne’s method of painting was a carefully thought-out process of checks and balances, where a brushstroke was followed by a stroke in another part of the canvas calculated to re-establish the compositional balance that the earlier stroke had altered. A carefully planned and executed intellectual organization.

I pursued my thinking about the matter and studied many other reproductions of Cezanne’s paintings of his La Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A good number of them feature dark brushstrokes in the sky near the mountain peak!

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I sent off a letter to MOMA (In part), with inclusions:

Dear [Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture],

I have become aware of what I find to be a so-far-undescribed, important device that Cezanne several times used as a strategy to meld realistic depiction with his pictorial strategy. In some of his paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, a distinctive stroke of paint brings the eye up toward the peak and also helps hold the sky onto the two-dimensional flatness of his canvass. I’m not aware of any previous analysis of Cezanne in which this is noted–although a side-by-side view of specific depictions of the mountain makes this obvious to me. Neither am I aware of any previous mention that the stroke is also a “realistic” depiction of a sometimes-occurring atmospheric condition that I describe.

I suggest that a marvelous and revelatory small exhibit showing side-by-side Cezanne paintings (and maybe John Marin’s related watercolors) would be both educational and entertaining.

I await a response.

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KRULLER MULLER’S VAN GOGH

When I did my Grand Tour of Europe driving my new VW Bug in 1966, I visited not only Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, but, hidden in the woods, the Kruller Muller Museum, chock full of Van Goghs. They had there, a 12  ½” X 13 ½” masterpiece I’d never before seen even in reproduction, “Willows at Sunset.” I bought a full-size reproduction I still have, hanging in my study.

I sent off an email to the Kruller Muller Museum (In part):

Dear Museum,

In 1966 I visited your museum and was delighted. I was especially amazed at a Van Gogh painting I had never seen in reproduction. I consider WILLOWS AT SUNSET to be probably Van Gogh’s greatest work.

My question is–I encountered this by accident–why is this masterpiece almost never reproduced?

I await a response.

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BRAIN PICKINGS MULTIPLE SUBJECTS

About a year past I encountered a website, “Brain Pickings—An Inventory of the Meaningful Life,” maintained by Maria Popova, (https://www.brainpickings.org)

It constantly delivers extended and illustrated essays on art, literature, scientific thinking, philosophy, and many other fascinating subjects.

(Just a few Brain Pickings topics:

Seven Life Learnings mobile; Emily Dickinson’s herbarium book pages.

The Glory of Books; quirky book illustrations of Alice in Wonderland;

Bodoni typeface pop-up)

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I sent off an email to Brain Pickings (In part):

Dear Maria Popova,

I’ve just devoured your article on illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.  Many of your postings have fascinated me since I first encountered them about a year ago, and I admire you and thank you for your intelligent and artistic sensibility in your Brain Pickings endeavors.

I await a response.

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Does anybody else do this sort of investigation and pursuit?

I really think that everybody should.

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