Bill Murray Admits a Painting Saved His Life
December 25, 2020 3:27 PM Subscribe
In which Bill Murray describes the aftermath of his disastrous first acting audition, which found him despondently wandering the streets of Chicago and finally at the Chicago Art Institute. Here he describes what he saw to reporters at a London Press conference in answer to the question, "What do you think the world would be like without art in it? (from 2014, via YouTube)
Here is the painting (with a poem added, on YouTube): Song of the Lark
Bill Murray previously
Bill Murray FanFare (a partial selection)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Movie: Rushmore (1998)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man (2018)
Here is the painting (with a poem added, on YouTube): Song of the Lark
Bill Murray previously
Bill Murray FanFare (a partial selection)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Movie: Rushmore (1998)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man (2018)
Bill Murray is the greatest. I love him. I love his craggy face and humane eyes.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:22 PM on December 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:22 PM on December 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
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That brought tears to my eyes. Art matters.
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 6:13 PM on December 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 6:13 PM on December 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
THIS IS MY FAVORITE PAINTING AT THE ART INSTITUTE.
I saw the above-the-fold and said, "Was it Song of the Lark? I bet it was Song of the Lark." Clicked inside and I AM NOT DISAPPOINTED!
I had a poster of this on my wall all through college and grad school to help me just, like, deal with life.
I am not an "art person" who knows a lot about art or art history, although I love looking at it and go to art museums whenever I can -- I've been to the great art museums in London and Paris and Moscow and St. Petersburg and Rome -- and I love docent tours that tell you fascinating art facts. But I do not particularly have good artistic taste when it comes to visual art, and I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at. There are so many beautiful and fascinating and great pieces at the Art Institute, and I've been a bazillionty times (Chicago-area kids go on field trips pretty much every year), but for whatever reason, during one visit in high school, I saw this painting and I was absolutely stunned and stupefied. I must have walked past it a dozen times before. But this time, it caught me, and I stood there transfixed for more than an hour. One of the teachers had to come find me to fetch me to the bus. I'm not sure any painting has ever affected me so much, and I don't know why, but it's just -- it's heart-gripping.
When I visit the Art Institute now, I have to consciously put it at the end of my itinerary or I won't see anything else. :)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:21 PM on December 25, 2020 [39 favorites]
I saw the above-the-fold and said, "Was it Song of the Lark? I bet it was Song of the Lark." Clicked inside and I AM NOT DISAPPOINTED!
I had a poster of this on my wall all through college and grad school to help me just, like, deal with life.
I am not an "art person" who knows a lot about art or art history, although I love looking at it and go to art museums whenever I can -- I've been to the great art museums in London and Paris and Moscow and St. Petersburg and Rome -- and I love docent tours that tell you fascinating art facts. But I do not particularly have good artistic taste when it comes to visual art, and I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at. There are so many beautiful and fascinating and great pieces at the Art Institute, and I've been a bazillionty times (Chicago-area kids go on field trips pretty much every year), but for whatever reason, during one visit in high school, I saw this painting and I was absolutely stunned and stupefied. I must have walked past it a dozen times before. But this time, it caught me, and I stood there transfixed for more than an hour. One of the teachers had to come find me to fetch me to the bus. I'm not sure any painting has ever affected me so much, and I don't know why, but it's just -- it's heart-gripping.
When I visit the Art Institute now, I have to consciously put it at the end of my itinerary or I won't see anything else. :)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:21 PM on December 25, 2020 [39 favorites]
What does the painting mean? I just see proto communist imagery at first glance. And an egg yolk.
posted by polymodus at 7:03 PM on December 25, 2020
posted by polymodus at 7:03 PM on December 25, 2020
proto communist
Because of the sickle?
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:11 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Because of the sickle?
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:11 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
" just see proto communist imagery at first glance."
AFAIK Breton was not a communist; he was part of the French naturalist school, and he idolized rural life in a more Rosseau-ian way. He was one of the foremost painters of French rural life of the era. He's well-known for painting everyday rural life of peasants and regular people using the style of the Old Masters. He's a bit behind the times stylistically, really (Monet was 20 years younger than he was), since Impressionism was coming in, but his use of the grand Old Master oil style on French peasant subjects was startling in its time.
It's also impossible for a reproduction to capture the luminosity of the sunrise in the photo -- whether printed or digital, they all flatten it to meaninglessness; reproductions are inevitably muddy and abrupt -- or the girl's vibrancy. It's got Rembrandt-type luminosity in the light and the skin, layers and layers and layers of pigments. I have been looking for a good reproduction for twenty-five years, and never found one -- they're at best reminders of the painting, but without the layers and layers of oil paints, prints can't capture it.
If you see the painting in person, you can HEAR the lark she hears. You can SEE she just paused to hear a moment of incredible beauty, and you can just about see the lark. It's that real, and that moving.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:23 PM on December 25, 2020 [99 favorites]
AFAIK Breton was not a communist; he was part of the French naturalist school, and he idolized rural life in a more Rosseau-ian way. He was one of the foremost painters of French rural life of the era. He's well-known for painting everyday rural life of peasants and regular people using the style of the Old Masters. He's a bit behind the times stylistically, really (Monet was 20 years younger than he was), since Impressionism was coming in, but his use of the grand Old Master oil style on French peasant subjects was startling in its time.
It's also impossible for a reproduction to capture the luminosity of the sunrise in the photo -- whether printed or digital, they all flatten it to meaninglessness; reproductions are inevitably muddy and abrupt -- or the girl's vibrancy. It's got Rembrandt-type luminosity in the light and the skin, layers and layers and layers of pigments. I have been looking for a good reproduction for twenty-five years, and never found one -- they're at best reminders of the painting, but without the layers and layers of oil paints, prints can't capture it.
If you see the painting in person, you can HEAR the lark she hears. You can SEE she just paused to hear a moment of incredible beauty, and you can just about see the lark. It's that real, and that moving.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:23 PM on December 25, 2020 [99 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, EM. Thank you.
posted by darkstar at 7:30 PM on December 25, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by darkstar at 7:30 PM on December 25, 2020 [5 favorites]
Eyebrows, you have your finger firmly on the pulse of this painting. You’re testifying eerily to my own experience of that painting. Thank you. And folks, seek this painting out to see for yourselves. Thanks too for you, Bill Murray. And thanks (I’m full of them tonight!) for this FPP!
posted by foodbedgospel at 7:31 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by foodbedgospel at 7:31 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
Wow, it is great for Bill Murray. Art does matter, the craggy face, humane eyes are so lovely.
posted by DavidHula at 7:46 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by DavidHula at 7:46 PM on December 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Bill Murray. This post. These comments. The painting. All great. Good work all around everybody.
posted by vorpal bunny at 7:54 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by vorpal bunny at 7:54 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
Standing right here brought tears to my eyes when I stood in front of it, for reasons as banal as never in my life before had I stood in front of a real Master as there are none in Asian museums. I never thought I'd see the art in person that I'd only read about until then.
posted by infini at 11:00 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by infini at 11:00 PM on December 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
Decades ago I rode with my brother from Phoenix to Chicago to see our oldest brother who was living up there. Every time I fell asleep it seemed, my brother would get a speeding ticket. (He got 3!) So I stayed awake the whole way, and my brother kept wanting to listen to that damned Laurie Anderson box set on 4 cassettes as we drove all the way non stop.
So we were tired the morning we got there, the sky was cold and grey, and our brother was at work still. And we somehow had parked near the Art Institute. I remember walking in and offering the change in my pocket which wasn't even a dollar, but all I had in the world.
I hope donations are still their policy, because it was wonderful and perfect. I wish I'd had more than that day there. Wish I hadn't come back to Arizona after that trip but
Many many years later, living in an artspace in Phoenix I was ready to give up on life. Instead walked a couple of blocks to the public library and sat on the sunny top floor with a copy of The Myth of Sisyphus and spent the afternoon with it occasionally looking up for long stretches and pondering the blue sky and little fluffy clouds. Then I came back and did it again the next day, and the day after until I'd finished the book. And didn't want to give up anymore.
posted by Catblack at 11:49 PM on December 25, 2020 [33 favorites]
So we were tired the morning we got there, the sky was cold and grey, and our brother was at work still. And we somehow had parked near the Art Institute. I remember walking in and offering the change in my pocket which wasn't even a dollar, but all I had in the world.
I hope donations are still their policy, because it was wonderful and perfect. I wish I'd had more than that day there. Wish I hadn't come back to Arizona after that trip but
Many many years later, living in an artspace in Phoenix I was ready to give up on life. Instead walked a couple of blocks to the public library and sat on the sunny top floor with a copy of The Myth of Sisyphus and spent the afternoon with it occasionally looking up for long stretches and pondering the blue sky and little fluffy clouds. Then I came back and did it again the next day, and the day after until I'd finished the book. And didn't want to give up anymore.
posted by Catblack at 11:49 PM on December 25, 2020 [33 favorites]
> But I do not particularly have good artistic taste when it comes to visual art, and I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at.
The best way to appreciate art is to not overthink it. Unless of course the opportunity to overthink it is what moves you.
People -- or at least Americans, I haven't traveled enough to comment on people elsewhere on Earth -- are weirdly wrapped up in only being permitted to appreciate it with established formalities. It's a hangup I wish we could get past. One of the best times I've ever had in an art museum was browsing the North Carolina Museum of Art's collection of pre-Renaissance devotional and Northern Renaissance paintings. Because aside from a handful of the usual suspects there were dozens and dozens of awkward and mediocre works, the sort that get churned out in bulk on commission by middle-tier studios to fill the houses and chapels of the nouveaux-riche (in case you thought Donald Trump was anything new), and I was in a mood, and maybe my spouse was too, because we kept finding them absolutely hilarious. There were flailing attempts at drawing sheep or women or boats, figures seemingly pasted in by different artists, verisimilitude-destroying dudes repeatedly wedged in the margins of various paintings which were probably the masters of the studios leaving their marks (and were sometimes the only reasonably good-looking people)... It was the fine art counterpart of watching a 1970s exploitation film and for the moment you happen to be vibing with everything it's about, including how self-aware it is that its only real purpose is to simply distract your attention to itself for a fixed period of time and what it's actually doing is kind of irrelevant.
I love art museums and I hated being unable to go to any this year. For me, a big major museum is like an all-day rock festival for other people, it's a portal through which I lose my senses of place and time. A private gallery or a specialist museum like Dia Beacon is like a night at a club or theater where the band you'd never seen before is absolutely on fire. I think all you really need to enjoy fine art is a willingness to uncynically receive what is offered, and let it make you happy or enraged or sad, smarter or contemplative or energized, or whatever. Americans don't accept the idea that prequalifications are necessary to experience music, but that they're mandatory to experience fine art. It's bizarre. Just go and get lost. If some paintings and sculptures and artifacts don't work for you, it's fine, there's so fucking much to see. Great art will reward a patient viewer, but you can't spend that time with everything, and not everything is great. The history of art is a mirror of the history of humanity, and expecting to like or love everything is as absurd as expecting to like and love everyone. The museum has thousands of items and you're allowed to skip around to find the ones that connect with you.
posted by ardgedee at 3:26 AM on December 26, 2020 [34 favorites]
The best way to appreciate art is to not overthink it. Unless of course the opportunity to overthink it is what moves you.
People -- or at least Americans, I haven't traveled enough to comment on people elsewhere on Earth -- are weirdly wrapped up in only being permitted to appreciate it with established formalities. It's a hangup I wish we could get past. One of the best times I've ever had in an art museum was browsing the North Carolina Museum of Art's collection of pre-Renaissance devotional and Northern Renaissance paintings. Because aside from a handful of the usual suspects there were dozens and dozens of awkward and mediocre works, the sort that get churned out in bulk on commission by middle-tier studios to fill the houses and chapels of the nouveaux-riche (in case you thought Donald Trump was anything new), and I was in a mood, and maybe my spouse was too, because we kept finding them absolutely hilarious. There were flailing attempts at drawing sheep or women or boats, figures seemingly pasted in by different artists, verisimilitude-destroying dudes repeatedly wedged in the margins of various paintings which were probably the masters of the studios leaving their marks (and were sometimes the only reasonably good-looking people)... It was the fine art counterpart of watching a 1970s exploitation film and for the moment you happen to be vibing with everything it's about, including how self-aware it is that its only real purpose is to simply distract your attention to itself for a fixed period of time and what it's actually doing is kind of irrelevant.
I love art museums and I hated being unable to go to any this year. For me, a big major museum is like an all-day rock festival for other people, it's a portal through which I lose my senses of place and time. A private gallery or a specialist museum like Dia Beacon is like a night at a club or theater where the band you'd never seen before is absolutely on fire. I think all you really need to enjoy fine art is a willingness to uncynically receive what is offered, and let it make you happy or enraged or sad, smarter or contemplative or energized, or whatever. Americans don't accept the idea that prequalifications are necessary to experience music, but that they're mandatory to experience fine art. It's bizarre. Just go and get lost. If some paintings and sculptures and artifacts don't work for you, it's fine, there's so fucking much to see. Great art will reward a patient viewer, but you can't spend that time with everything, and not everything is great. The history of art is a mirror of the history of humanity, and expecting to like or love everything is as absurd as expecting to like and love everyone. The museum has thousands of items and you're allowed to skip around to find the ones that connect with you.
posted by ardgedee at 3:26 AM on December 26, 2020 [34 favorites]
ardgedee, your second para describes my 40th b'day present to me, a day spent at the Louvre - I flew in from SF where I was living then, all the way to Paris to celebrate. Followed by Picasso and Rodin.
posted by infini at 4:31 AM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by infini at 4:31 AM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Sometimes it makes me sad that I have little appreciation for paintings, sculpture, etc. I can appreciate the craft and see the details of stroke, so it's better than staring at a blank wall, but it just doesn't elicit the kind of emotional response many people seem to feel.
I say this not to take away from anyone's experience. A nice art museum, especially in an old building, can be a very pleasant way to while away an afternoon even for me. I just find it interesting how differently people respond to various kinds of art. I think we're better for the diversity of experience and taste.
posted by wierdo at 5:03 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I say this not to take away from anyone's experience. A nice art museum, especially in an old building, can be a very pleasant way to while away an afternoon even for me. I just find it interesting how differently people respond to various kinds of art. I think we're better for the diversity of experience and taste.
posted by wierdo at 5:03 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
Interesting that the painting captures something that is very difficult to photograph. If you were to capture the sky in a similar real-life scene with a camera, the foreground figure is just a dark silhouette, and if you were to capture the figure, the sky is washed out. This is something the human eye/brain is very good at adjusting for, but cameras not so much. Maybe new iPhones do this automatically with their built in computing/AI, I don't know. I used to take two different pictures of such a scene, then combine them on the PC to try to recreate that effect.
posted by jabah at 5:28 AM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by jabah at 5:28 AM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
I was unsure if that sun was rising or setting. After some Googling around I found that the morning sky has a noticeable vibrancy in color compared to sunset. Another clue is that larks sing only in the early morning before sunrise.
posted by cazoo at 8:18 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by cazoo at 8:18 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
Sometimes it makes me sad that I have little appreciation for paintings, sculpture, etc. I can appreciate the craft and see the details of stroke, so it's better than staring at a blank wall, but it just doesn't elicit the kind of emotional response many people seem to feel.
I don't think I had an emotional reaction to a painting until I encountered Mark Rothko's work in real life. And then I didn't have to search for a reaction at all, I just kind of got overwhelmed standing in front of one particular piece, and stood there for maybe 45 minutes until I'd felt everything that painting had stirred up in me. So if you're curious, I recommend a sprawling museum like the Art Institute, so you can experience several centuries' worth of visual art, and see if anything in particular strikes you (and if nothing does, that's OK, too, any creative modality doesn't have to affect everyone).
Interesting that the painting captures something that is very difficult to photograph.
Definitely, and I think it's the human expressive element that is in every part of a painted canvas (not to imply that photography is not expressive, or etc., but that literally every speck on a painted canvas must be intentional in a way that a photograph can not be). Looking at great photographs, I have strong aesthetic or empathetic experiences, but a painting stimulates a deeply felt, personal emotional response that is qualitatively different to me.
I'm just frustrated, for some weird reason, that Bill Murray never bothered to learn the name of the painting or the artist, even though his experience with that particular work saved his life in an important way (maybe even actually)...but he never, in all the decades since, wondered about the name of the artist or the title of the work? Huh.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don't think I had an emotional reaction to a painting until I encountered Mark Rothko's work in real life. And then I didn't have to search for a reaction at all, I just kind of got overwhelmed standing in front of one particular piece, and stood there for maybe 45 minutes until I'd felt everything that painting had stirred up in me. So if you're curious, I recommend a sprawling museum like the Art Institute, so you can experience several centuries' worth of visual art, and see if anything in particular strikes you (and if nothing does, that's OK, too, any creative modality doesn't have to affect everyone).
Interesting that the painting captures something that is very difficult to photograph.
Definitely, and I think it's the human expressive element that is in every part of a painted canvas (not to imply that photography is not expressive, or etc., but that literally every speck on a painted canvas must be intentional in a way that a photograph can not be). Looking at great photographs, I have strong aesthetic or empathetic experiences, but a painting stimulates a deeply felt, personal emotional response that is qualitatively different to me.
I'm just frustrated, for some weird reason, that Bill Murray never bothered to learn the name of the painting or the artist, even though his experience with that particular work saved his life in an important way (maybe even actually)...but he never, in all the decades since, wondered about the name of the artist or the title of the work? Huh.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 AM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
I can understand the desire not to learn the name of the painting or the artist: to keep that profound experience just as it was, without any reverse-imposed filter of knowing the earthy details and messiness of its origin and its creator's history.
posted by Ausamor at 8:34 AM on December 26, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Ausamor at 8:34 AM on December 26, 2020 [10 favorites]
As Eyebrows McGee says, reproductions often just can't do justice to the artwork itself -- something is missing in the image. Sometimes it's presentation context, often it's scale. Sometimes it's subtle layers of pigmentation.
Whether you consider yourself someone who "gets" art or not, you do owe it to yourself to see some of these creations in their intended context.
I thought I understood Guernica until I was right there in front of it in Madrid.
I didn't "get" Rothko at all until I saw his work at the Tate Modern in London.
And for the near perfect example of an artwork being unable to be reproduced with our current level of technology: if you ever have a chance to see an Yves Klein sculpture, the real visual poke in the eye of a true Klein Blue is an unbelievable thing to see with your own eyes.
posted by tclark at 10:57 AM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
Whether you consider yourself someone who "gets" art or not, you do owe it to yourself to see some of these creations in their intended context.
I thought I understood Guernica until I was right there in front of it in Madrid.
I didn't "get" Rothko at all until I saw his work at the Tate Modern in London.
And for the near perfect example of an artwork being unable to be reproduced with our current level of technology: if you ever have a chance to see an Yves Klein sculpture, the real visual poke in the eye of a true Klein Blue is an unbelievable thing to see with your own eyes.
posted by tclark at 10:57 AM on December 26, 2020 [7 favorites]
I just see proto communist imagery at first glance.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
posted by neuron at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
posted by neuron at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's also impossible for a reproduction to capture the luminosity of the sunrise in the photo
This reminded me of when I finally had the chance to go to Paris last year for the first time in my life. I went to the Musée d'Orsay because of all the Impressionists, and I absolutely fell in love with Renoir's paintings. So much calm beauty. Reproductions don't do them justice.
Americans don't accept the idea that prequalifications are necessary to experience music, but that they're mandatory to experience fine art. It's bizarre. Just go and get lost.
I agree 100% with this (I'm Canadian, but close enough). Go, look at different types of art, and find out what you like. There's no wrong answer.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:34 AM on December 26, 2020
This reminded me of when I finally had the chance to go to Paris last year for the first time in my life. I went to the Musée d'Orsay because of all the Impressionists, and I absolutely fell in love with Renoir's paintings. So much calm beauty. Reproductions don't do them justice.
Americans don't accept the idea that prequalifications are necessary to experience music, but that they're mandatory to experience fine art. It's bizarre. Just go and get lost.
I agree 100% with this (I'm Canadian, but close enough). Go, look at different types of art, and find out what you like. There's no wrong answer.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:34 AM on December 26, 2020
I realized I had walked the wrong direction. Not just the wrong direction in terms of where I lived but wrong direction in terms of a desire to stay alive [...]I appreciate Murray for publicly sharing this vulnerable moment. This helps other people facing mental health struggles. It’s easy to forget that even “successful” people, who on the outside look so confident, can also suffer from depression. Either in their past or as an ongoing battle.
I walked in, and there's a painting there. And I don't even know who painted it... I think it's called The Song of the Lark. And it's a woman working in a field, and there's a sunrise behind her. And I've always loved this painting, and I saw it that day, and I just thought, 'Well, look, there's a girl who doesn't have a whole lot of prospects, but the sun's coming up anyway.'
posted by mundo at 11:36 AM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
I don't think I had an emotional reaction to a painting until I encountered Mark Rothko's work in real life.
Wow, I could have written that. It was a wild experience for me because there was no subject matter to focus on -- just fields of color and texture. I've always appreciated art but I'd never felt such a visceral and emotional reaction to anything other than music. It was like looking at the world from a million miles away and also like being very small child, watching the churn and violence of existence from a safe reserve and just being in awe at its utter, terrible beauty. The emotions just overtook me and I was a slightly different person when I finally walked away.
I had a similar reaction to this Cy Twombly painting. Something about being in the presence of it. I instantly "knew" it was about saying goodbye to a loved one, a whole life from birth, to growing up, to awkwardly figuring things out, to finally bursting forth with radiance, and then parting. I have no idea whether or not that's the intention of the painting, but that interpretation came to me in instant, and it was like being in the living presence of someone's whole life. I never would have gotten that from it if I'd just seen it reproduced in a photograph. Sometimes the art doesn't make sense until you're right there in front of it and with it.
posted by treepour at 2:43 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wow, I could have written that. It was a wild experience for me because there was no subject matter to focus on -- just fields of color and texture. I've always appreciated art but I'd never felt such a visceral and emotional reaction to anything other than music. It was like looking at the world from a million miles away and also like being very small child, watching the churn and violence of existence from a safe reserve and just being in awe at its utter, terrible beauty. The emotions just overtook me and I was a slightly different person when I finally walked away.
I had a similar reaction to this Cy Twombly painting. Something about being in the presence of it. I instantly "knew" it was about saying goodbye to a loved one, a whole life from birth, to growing up, to awkwardly figuring things out, to finally bursting forth with radiance, and then parting. I have no idea whether or not that's the intention of the painting, but that interpretation came to me in instant, and it was like being in the living presence of someone's whole life. I never would have gotten that from it if I'd just seen it reproduced in a photograph. Sometimes the art doesn't make sense until you're right there in front of it and with it.
posted by treepour at 2:43 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
Umm..hey. There's no wheat in that picture. She shouldn't be carrying that. I think she just killed somebody. :(
posted by sexyrobot at 3:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by sexyrobot at 3:09 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
you do owe it to yourself to see some of these creations in their intended context
This made me really sad.
The art world has a lot of issues with access. The most basic and most insurmountable is geography. Most people just can't afford to travel to see these pieces of art.
I wish there was a way that we could make it more accessible.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:37 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
This made me really sad.
The art world has a lot of issues with access. The most basic and most insurmountable is geography. Most people just can't afford to travel to see these pieces of art.
I wish there was a way that we could make it more accessible.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:37 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Umm..hey. There's no wheat in that picture. She shouldn't be carrying that.
Looks like she’s on her morning commute. We can’t all work from home while wearing pajamas.
posted by mundo at 5:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
Looks like she’s on her morning commute. We can’t all work from home while wearing pajamas.
posted by mundo at 5:42 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]
But I do not particularly have good artistic taste when it comes to visual art, and I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at.
You don't always need to. I think the best "art education" I got was being a bored kid flipping through the coffee table books my Mom had devoted to Van Gogh and Gaugin; I never read them, at most I read the captions and looked at the pictures. That information really didn't stick and I barely remember what I read.
But it didn't matter - all that mattered was that I was now aware that this kind of thing existed, and that some of the pictures I saw appealed to me. That primed me for being brought to an art museum on a class trip when I was twelve, and being one of the very few kids who really dug it - because now here was a whole lot of art for me to look at. Some of it I thought was boring, some of it I thought was weird, but some of it was damn cool, and I wanted to keep walking around and looking for the cool stuff.
Artistic appreciation is highly personal. There are some artworks where when you see them, something will just switch on in your gut and you will fall in love with it. You can't predict what that might be - for me, it's only been a handful of things, like Balthus' Figure In Front Of A Mantel or the Versailles Panorama at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or anything from the Hudson River School.
If you don't have that gut-level reaction, all the scholarly critiques or artist's statements are just going to be academic and dry. The modern artist Damien Hirst has a very lengthy and sensible explanation for his work The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living - when I saw it, the curator's notes said that Hirst picked a shark for his symbol because we're used to seeing sharks always in motion, and seeing a completely still shark was as foreign a concept as death must be. Which - well, yeah, I follow that logic. But - none of that changes the fact that for me, that thing just looks like a half-finished natural history museum exhibit and bores me. On the other hand, I once saw something in a contemporary art museum: the artist took a Trans-Am, spraypainted the body black, and then etched the complete text of the Book of Revelations into the paint. He then hung a pair of neon-green fuzzy dice on the mirror and put a tape of George Thorogood's "Bad To The Bone" in the tape deck on a continuous loop, and the whole thing was named"The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse". I took one look at that and my gut just said "now that's cool."
You don't necessarily need to know a lot about what you're looking at; all that matters is if what you're looking at gives you that "now that's cool" reaction.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
You don't always need to. I think the best "art education" I got was being a bored kid flipping through the coffee table books my Mom had devoted to Van Gogh and Gaugin; I never read them, at most I read the captions and looked at the pictures. That information really didn't stick and I barely remember what I read.
But it didn't matter - all that mattered was that I was now aware that this kind of thing existed, and that some of the pictures I saw appealed to me. That primed me for being brought to an art museum on a class trip when I was twelve, and being one of the very few kids who really dug it - because now here was a whole lot of art for me to look at. Some of it I thought was boring, some of it I thought was weird, but some of it was damn cool, and I wanted to keep walking around and looking for the cool stuff.
Artistic appreciation is highly personal. There are some artworks where when you see them, something will just switch on in your gut and you will fall in love with it. You can't predict what that might be - for me, it's only been a handful of things, like Balthus' Figure In Front Of A Mantel or the Versailles Panorama at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or anything from the Hudson River School.
If you don't have that gut-level reaction, all the scholarly critiques or artist's statements are just going to be academic and dry. The modern artist Damien Hirst has a very lengthy and sensible explanation for his work The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living - when I saw it, the curator's notes said that Hirst picked a shark for his symbol because we're used to seeing sharks always in motion, and seeing a completely still shark was as foreign a concept as death must be. Which - well, yeah, I follow that logic. But - none of that changes the fact that for me, that thing just looks like a half-finished natural history museum exhibit and bores me. On the other hand, I once saw something in a contemporary art museum: the artist took a Trans-Am, spraypainted the body black, and then etched the complete text of the Book of Revelations into the paint. He then hung a pair of neon-green fuzzy dice on the mirror and put a tape of George Thorogood's "Bad To The Bone" in the tape deck on a continuous loop, and the whole thing was named"The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse". I took one look at that and my gut just said "now that's cool."
You don't necessarily need to know a lot about what you're looking at; all that matters is if what you're looking at gives you that "now that's cool" reaction.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:07 PM on December 26, 2020 [5 favorites]
From Bill Murray's Wikipedia:
posted by pwnguin at 7:31 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
During his teen years he was the lead singer of a rock band called the Dutch Masters and took part in high school and community theater.[15]He seemed to know a thing or two about painters before he stepped out of that audition or into the Chicago Art Institute.
posted by pwnguin at 7:31 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
"Dutch Masters" was also the name of a brand of cigar back in the day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:41 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:41 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]
The website's zoom functionality is kind of annoying on my large desktop monitor, so I downloaded the full resolution image. (4716x6109, 46MB)
Thanks to Dezoomify!
posted by dobi at 10:31 AM on December 27, 2020
Thanks to Dezoomify!
posted by dobi at 10:31 AM on December 27, 2020
The Wikipedia entry on Breton is of interest:
Arguably, Breton's fame peaked posthumously in 1934 at The Chicago World's Fair. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt unveiled The Song of the Lark as the winner of the Chicago Daily News contest to find the "most beloved work of art in America". Further, she declared the painting as being her personal favorite painting."
Added: Bill Murray, of course, played FDR in the 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson so there’s an interesting connection.
posted by Rashomon at 10:39 AM on December 27, 2020
Arguably, Breton's fame peaked posthumously in 1934 at The Chicago World's Fair. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt unveiled The Song of the Lark as the winner of the Chicago Daily News contest to find the "most beloved work of art in America". Further, she declared the painting as being her personal favorite painting."
Added: Bill Murray, of course, played FDR in the 2012 film Hyde Park on Hudson so there’s an interesting connection.
posted by Rashomon at 10:39 AM on December 27, 2020
"Dutch Masters" was also the name of a brand of cigar back in the day.
Yes. Cigar. That is what we used them for. To smoke tobacco. Yup.
...
I love art and especially sculpture. I'm lucky to live in Philly where we have the Rodin museum. I've often found myself just walking around the outside. There's even a version of the Gates of Hell at the entrance. Sigh.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:34 AM on December 27, 2020
Yes. Cigar. That is what we used them for. To smoke tobacco. Yup.
...
I love art and especially sculpture. I'm lucky to live in Philly where we have the Rodin museum. I've often found myself just walking around the outside. There's even a version of the Gates of Hell at the entrance. Sigh.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:34 AM on December 27, 2020
Ironically, the "Dutchie' in "Pass the Dutchie" was a cooking pot. The original version of the song HAD been about what you're thinking, but that was when it was called "Pass the Kouchie", and when Musical Youth did it, someone thought it wouldn't quite be cool for kids to be singing about blunts, so they switched it to "dutchie", which was then a Jamaican nickname for a Dutch-Oven type of cooking pot.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:30 PM on December 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
This post is a journey.
--
I've never seen that piece before. It's amazing. And, for a moment, I thought the artist was a woman. I always get really thrilled when the person of note is a woman and it's not siloed inside a "look! women!" context. But that's usually because it's a man with a woman's name. Not that Jules of old was a woman's name. Clearly.
posted by amanda at 8:37 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
--
I've never seen that piece before. It's amazing. And, for a moment, I thought the artist was a woman. I always get really thrilled when the person of note is a woman and it's not siloed inside a "look! women!" context. But that's usually because it's a man with a woman's name. Not that Jules of old was a woman's name. Clearly.
posted by amanda at 8:37 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
"But I do not particularly have good artistic taste when it comes to visual art, and I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at."
"The best way to appreciate art is to not overthink it. Unless of course the opportunity to overthink it is what moves you."
I guess I had the privilege to grow up with relatively free access to really great classical art -- the Art Institute, Chicago Symphony Center, the Steppenwolf -- and teachers to make sense of it, and parents who supported it even when they didn't understand it (neither of my parents has a musical ear, and classical and jazz music was my THING). BUT I also grew up surrounded by a lot of super-pretentious gatekeepers about great classical art who demanded I constantly admit my ignorance, and who insisted I couldn't really enjoy $Art because I lacked the right education/sensibility/gender.
So I guess I always feel like, if I'm going to express an opinion, especially about visual art, I have to disclaim that I don't know a lot about what I'm talking about, and also that I'm not a gatekeeper who keeps others out. And I'm not sure if it's more pernicious that I disclaim gatekeeping or if it's more pernicious that I Just Have Opinions without apologizing! I feel like I should say, "I'm an amateur who likes learning about things, and also I love things"? Because anybody can love things and learn about them. But I guess I'm still uneasy that maybe I don't like the right things for The Pompous Gatekeepers, and I will be told that my opinions on visual art are dumb and bad and I should feel bad EVEN THOUGH those paintings are in the Art Institute! Probably my opinions are fine!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:57 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
"The best way to appreciate art is to not overthink it. Unless of course the opportunity to overthink it is what moves you."
I guess I had the privilege to grow up with relatively free access to really great classical art -- the Art Institute, Chicago Symphony Center, the Steppenwolf -- and teachers to make sense of it, and parents who supported it even when they didn't understand it (neither of my parents has a musical ear, and classical and jazz music was my THING). BUT I also grew up surrounded by a lot of super-pretentious gatekeepers about great classical art who demanded I constantly admit my ignorance, and who insisted I couldn't really enjoy $Art because I lacked the right education/sensibility/gender.
So I guess I always feel like, if I'm going to express an opinion, especially about visual art, I have to disclaim that I don't know a lot about what I'm talking about, and also that I'm not a gatekeeper who keeps others out. And I'm not sure if it's more pernicious that I disclaim gatekeeping or if it's more pernicious that I Just Have Opinions without apologizing! I feel like I should say, "I'm an amateur who likes learning about things, and also I love things"? Because anybody can love things and learn about them. But I guess I'm still uneasy that maybe I don't like the right things for The Pompous Gatekeepers, and I will be told that my opinions on visual art are dumb and bad and I should feel bad EVEN THOUGH those paintings are in the Art Institute! Probably my opinions are fine!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:57 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by Conrad-Casserole at 4:41 PM on December 25, 2020 [1 favorite]