Yesterday, as I walked through Central Park, having taken the C train uptown, on my way to the Met, I thought of a poem I wrote, in another century seemingly, on my way to another exhibition at the Met: of the certainty that seeing that exhibition would affect me:
…a sunny October Monday
in Central Park, I wait to enter Corot, for I know
he will change the entire day’s outlook
Yesterday it was to see Morandi, and I had the same anticipatory feeling, that Morandi, with his restricted set of visions, would somehow overpower my sense of looking, and I was right. It was a press preview, and for that had an unusual feeling instead of an opening, in particular an opening in Europe at the turn of the last century. I kept seeing Duncan Hannah, obviously enjoying himself, lingering there in the presence of these muted, understated works. Morandi chose his format early: the still life, classic visual situation from art and life, yet he imbued it with something strange. His work is not realistic but metaphysical. I was reminded often of the Portuguese author José Saramago. There is a sense of the world’s limitations but also that the vessels in this circumscribed world take on living presence. This is partly because of the way he painted, with a trembling, yet precise stroke. The paint is living and captivates the willing eye. On the other end of the spectrum, Morandi can remind you of Gorey, the sense of beakers as animals, inanimate forms creepily stirring in the half-shadows. On the purely technical level, they are great paintings; one feels sure Guston saw and learned a lot from them. One etching gives the precise feeling of Italian heat on landscape. His last signed painting, done in 1964 shortly before his death, is in the exhibition, with a fantastic note to his friend, the critic Roberto Longhi: "If you only knew, my dear Longhi, how badly I want to work. I have new ideas that I wish to develop." It is comforting to have evidence of the satisfaction that making art can give.
Today, it was a different exhibition at a different museum: Van Gogh’s night paintings at MoMA. I thought, well, that’s life, yesterday’s news covered up by today’s. Surely, Van Gogh’s vibrancy will obliterate the quiet pleasures of the Bolognese. But I was wrong. Van Gogh of course is always excellent. Today, I felt the sadness of his story more, the constant searching and longing, and the turbulence in the center of Starry Night somehow frightened me. But Morandi’s different vision did not go away.
Also on view: collages by John Ashbery and paintings by Trevor Winkfield at Tibor de Nagy Gallery. Both terrific, and an excellent pairing. A fabulous afternoon in an ice-cream parlor.
In the meantime, I realize I have always loved the space around and inside of the Met and have written other poems there, such as "La Traviata," dedicated to Rene Ricard, whom I count as a friend, though I don’t see him often:
The conversation the two coffee servers
are having at the temple of Dendur —
"There was something on it in the Times today"
"Where did you meet her, in a bar?" —
is suddenly much more interesting
than the overblown exhibition you have come to see
While in "World Premiere Of A Lost Masterpiece," dedicted to Burckhardt, we find that:
Before the rain, I was pondering de Kooning’s doors
and windows into Roxy’s correspondence
the latter a reference to a large installation by Ed Kienholz at the Whitney.
A very early poem written in front of the Met:
SUMMER
What we said
was said well;
what we shared
is better left unsaid;
it’s part
of a magic dream
concocted on
5th Avenue,
evening,
on a bench
in front of
the Met
facing downtown:
the Empire
State
Building, creamy
swash of
sky, chill
as
autumn
turns
into winter
when night
turns
into day;
like it used
to, so
man years
ago,
in school,
after
a soccer
game, fall
would turn
to winter
as
kids made
Friday-night-
plans; all
part
of a ro-
mance
in my mind,
sitting,
holding
hands.
More soon, to see and hear.