Musings at the Museum--Mr. Salinas

 


                    In an attempt to slow the burn-out caused by a long semester, I chose to stay here in Santa Fe over our Thanksgiving break rather than go to the trouble of traveling home. The goal was to get my life right in the span of four days. I envisioned cleaning my suite from floor to ceiling, getting through all my laundry, and starting my last math paper of the semester. I did none of those things. Instead, I slept through my morning alarms, spent too much time and money at Savers, and made Thanksgiving food. Not the plan, but on the whole a success. However, one thing that my empty days allowed me to do was visit the O'Keeffe Museum. 

                    On the whole visiting the Museum was wonderful and really enhanced my already deep appreciation of her artistry. One of the elements of being able to take in her art in person that I found impactful was being able to experience a kind of physicality with the paintings themselves. In our past couple of sessions, we have mulled over the question of the what is the extent of the importance of painting as a physical medium and the factors of creation involved in the manifestation of the artist's inner vision. For me, this question was pushed to the forefront, when taking in the paintings, particularly paintings that we had talked about in class. 

                    I was most struck by the presence of Untitled (City Night) 1970s. When we discussed this one in class I felt like I had a problem with it. Initially, it seemed to me like the most removed from the rest of O'Keeffe's body of work. It felt like an affront, almost vulgar in the garishness of it's narrowly encroaching voids. Through our discussion I delevoped a level of appreciation for it, but I was still left disconforted by it. However, seeing it at the museum was truely quite a different expirience from just looking at it in our book or the TV. I was first astonished by the sheer size of its canvas. It dominates the gallery wall on which it is displayed. The realtive simplicity of its compositonal elements accentuates the quality of its material. When one gets close to it, one is able to all of a sudden pick up on the white texture of the canvas peeking through the opressive black of the buildings and the almost sloppiness of O'Keeffe's brushstrokes of layered blues in the sky. In print the painting is smoothed. This smoothing makes the scene so much sleaker than how it is really viewed. In the gallery the work is reoriented to the status of a crafted object and not merely an image. Now, when I approahced this painting that I had predetermined was not my cup of tea, I suddenly felt differently about it. I was still unnerved by it, but not in the sense of aesthetic discontent, but because I was expiriencing--communing--with this painting. The content is still austere and the message bleak, but in being able to really examine it, I found a wartmth in its humanity. Something in seeing the reality of its material triggered my connection to it. This work seems to stand as a memorial and it is in recognizing O'Keeffe's physical manifestation of it that I was able to really feel the sense of earnest sadness and yearning in it. I only had to see myself in the reflection of her brushstrokes to get it. 

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshDecember 7, 2022 at 9:48 AM

    I love this and think you're totally right. On the page the painting is austere, like a harsh statement. When seen on a wall there is so much more feeling there, partly because one can commune with it spatially. Being able to see strokes and texture makes it 3-D, and this dimensionality seems crucial to experiencing something as living.

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