Musing: Art vs. Jan & Marla

Allow me a moment to toot my own proverbial horn. I can spot a Paul Gauguin painting from a mile away, I know the difference between Manet and Monet (besides the first vowel, you clever kids), and I know that black is a very difficult color with which to paint. Granted, these are all Impressionists (well, Gauguin is post-impressionism if we're going to split hairs), but I don't credit such knowledge to myself, but rather to my elementary school Art teacher, Mrs. Biesack.

Mrs. Biesack exposed our malleable minds to various artistic greats at quite the young age. Each class, we would sit at the dirty and worn tables and listen to her talk about pieces that changed her life. Her bathroom pass was a large plastic ear (she said it belonged to Vincent Van Gogh), but none of us ever used it; we were too entranced by the motions her thin hands made as she discussed Georgia O'Keeffe. She had the skull of her family cow, Bess, nailed to the wall dressed in flowers and a hat, like she was going to church. Only later did I learn that it too was an homage to O'Keeffe's "Cow's Skull." And, before I knew it, I recognized the names, styles, and inspirations of all the artists of the impressionistic art form. My mom always likes to remind me of the time we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was eight, and I dragged her round the impressionism wing, pointing out Pissarro, and correcting her when she thought a Renoir was a Seurat. "No, Mom," I, the precocious tot, said, "Seurat was into pointillism. Degas did the ballerinas."

One of Mrs. Biesack's favorite activities for us was to drop a shoebox full of supplies onto our table, and say "Create." The boxes were full of various accoutrements: buttons, broken brooches, et cetera. There were typical items as well: charcoal, pastels, chalk, pencils, but never markers. Those were too easy to attach and make into swords. We would all work, messing up our clothes and dirtying our fingernails, always looking over our shoulders, hoping for her to acknowledge our projects. I remember being transfixed by her skirt and the sound it would make as it lightly skimmed the paint splotched tiles. I always knew she was close by that sound, so I never had to look up. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we lived for the moment when her warm and calloused hand would touch our shoulder, and the whimsical sound her beaded earrings made when she nodded her head in approval. Me especially. Mrs. Biesack inspired me, so I worked hard in that class, and that work would eventually manifest itself in some of my "paintings" (glue and chalk jungle scenes, to be specific) being shown at local art galleries, and an eventual taking to a pottery wheel.

While I've lost that artistic eye in a sense, I've never lost my respect for it. That's why it nearly killed me today when I saw several fanny pack clad women at the Chicago Institute of Art strut up to a Rembrandt, point their acrylic nails to it, and say, "that's cool." And then walk to, I don't know, a Gaudi and say "Jan, look at this one, it's not very cute." And then discuss what they want for lunch. "I don't know," Jan would say, "I had that danish for breakfast, why don't we get some chicken caesar salad for lunch." Marla would respond, "Yeah, well let's just get outta here. All these pictures just look the same."

It's that response that puts me over the edge. I'm not a charlatan; I'm not going to pretend to know everything there is to know about art, because I don't. An example? Modern art. I don't get it. I look at a modern artist's work, say Cy Twombly, and don't understand its message necessarily, and find it challenging. In some cases, I find it so challenging that I throw my hands in the air and call it "stupid," and belittle it to some kind of meditation on a Rorschach test, but that's nothing more than a cry of ignorance. While I don't understand some of modern art's merit, art is art: the work and thought process that go into it deserve respect.

To be truthful, I highly doubt that El Greco painted "La Agoria en el Jardin" to be "cute," so please, don't deem it so. I doubt that Lucio Fontana practiced spatialism in hopes of coordinating with your Charter Club bedspread, so please, don't say it does. And, while I don't necessarily see the allure in an Asian ceramic, I'm not going to say, "Oh, I saw something like that at Pier 1 the other day." Well actually, I did say that, but only in mocking the innumerable Jans and Marlas that waddled around the Asian Art wing, talking about their favorite salad dressings for Mandarin Orange chicken salad.

The thing about art is that it isn't difficult to understand, it's not black and white, and it's not only for the elite. It's not for some thin mouthed, white haired wine connoisseur who enjoys Marcel Proust almost as much as he does his brioche and smoked gruyere spread; art is for everyone, even Jan and Marla. Mrs. Biesack taught me that. You're not stupid for not seeing Voltaire's bust in Dali's "The Slave Market" first, it's all about perspective. Art can and should be for everyone; all it requires is a little, yet big, thought.