BLUE AND GREEN

One of our favorites to listen to is The Wood Brothers. We can get our minds right when we have an adult beverage and feel the mood of a Wood Brothers song. The song Blue and Green is a beautiful tune with provocative lyrics.

Well my mother told my father one day / How much she had loved her life with him
Then she rose up from her body / And she vanished in the blue and green of spring
She was once just like me / Now she’s gone into the blue and green
Blue and green; blue and green / You ain’t lived until you’ve seen blue and green

As cats, we naturally appreciate the finer things in life. Fine literature, good music, better than average booze, and naps. We like seeing the blue and green in life. As our friend Mark Twain said, “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” So, to sort the blue and green from the BS of living, we have to draw a line somewhere in all things. Our recent visit to the Art Institute of Chicago made this very clear. What is art to one being may not be art to another. We have our ideas and opinions. We strolled past some displays which the AIC includes in its collection, but we just couldn’t figure out the reason a particular piece made the cut. No one asked our opinion.

We are all in on the Impressionists. The efforts to capture light and shadows are amazing. The boldness of brush strokes to make something become clear as we step back is mesmerizing. Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and others take our breath. We love the American artists of the early and middle 20th century. Buster likes some of the abstract work like Picasso and Jackson Pollock. Betty appreciates the art in the museum and the art of the museum architecture.

However, you will have a difficult time persuading us that a pile of candy on the floor, a series of items on a toilet paper bar, or a box of something on the floor is art. A couple of times we were tempted to get our broom out to clean up. Perhaps the artist had a specific message in mind when s/he constructed the piece, but if someone has to explain the message to us before we understand, then I question the method and the end product. For example, one “art installation” on display was nothing more than a metal rod with a couple of flags, a blind person’s cane and a high-reach pole attached to it. Supposedly the work showcased the artist’s ability to exploit the physical and emotional debris of our culture by juxtaposing a potent national symbol with comparatively disempowered emblems of mobility, probing and contact. Whatever.

See you later,

Betty and Buster

Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day

Claude Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train

Jean Renoir’s Two Sisters

Georges Pierre Seurat’s pointillism masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon

Vincent Van Gogh’s La Berceuse

Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles

Pollock’s Greyed Rainbow

Chikatsusei Maunkinshi’s Golden Wings Brushing the Clouds Incarnated from Earthly Wide Star, 1960