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August 13, 2009
TT: Brief encounters
Massachusetts in a nutshell: two towns, two shows, two days. Today I write and file Friday's Wall Street Journal drama column, eat breakfast, check out of my home away from home in Lenox, then drive back to Connecticut and Mrs. T.
I'm still too tired from my opera-related adventures to do much more than stick to the schedule, but on Wednesday I managed to work in a side trip to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, where I saw Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence. I like Georgia O'Keeffe well enough and love Arthur Dove passionately, and nothing I saw at the Clark caused me to modify either of those opinions. (O'Keeffe's paintings are too pretty for my taste.) Most of the Doves on display at the Clark are a bit less than his best, but "Fog Horns" is a masterpiece of synesthesia, and I fiercely coveted a triptych of tiny gouaches dating from the early Forties.
I also took a brisk stroll through the Clark's permanent collection, which I find pleasing but not especially exciting, though it contains one show-stopper, Turner's "Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water." This is a painting worth seeing as often as possible, and since I generally make it up to Williamstown once a year, that's about how often I see it. The older I get, the more intensely Turner delights me, which undoubtedly says more about me than it does about him.
I also got my first look at "Sleigh Ride," a well-known painting by Winslow Homer that for some reason had previously escaped my attention. I can't think why--it has an arrestingly modern quality of the kind that rarely fails to catch my eye. All I can tell you is that it leaped off the wall at me yesterday morning, and that I'm still thinking about it as I write these words.
Would that I had more to report about my two-day stay in Massachusetts, but you'll have to look at tomorrow's drama column to see what I thought of Twelfth Night and A Streetcar Named Desire, and beyond that I didn't contrive to cram in any additional art-related experiences. Man cannot live by beauty alone. Sometimes he needs to sleep late.
Posted August 13, 2009 12:00 AM
