Showing now in New York City are several art exhibitions that have broad appeal and some even have some French twists as does the one play we saw at the St Luke’s Theater.
My principal target this weekend was to see the 140 or so J.M.W. Turner paintings and watercolors at the Met, largely from the Tate. While I thought I’d seen almost all the Turner I could ever have wanted to, especially since the “Turner wing” at the Tate opened, I expected no surprises and indeed, there were none. But, once again, I was pleasantly reminded of how luminous he made most paintings seem and how brilliant a watercolorist he was. It’s open until September 21st.
On rather a whim, I dropped by the show of “hard stone,” formally called the “Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe.” Wow! What an eye-opener; I was dazzled by the spectacular colors, fine condition and eclectic use of polished hard stones, especially in the furniture - which was truly amazing. It also runs til September 21st.
After that, I had little need for more razzle or dazzle but obligation (and use of my $60 yearly MOMA membership) prompted a visit to the MOMA. As with Turner, I thought I’d been around the block enough with Dali to not be surprised by anything but expected lately to see old friends and admire old acquaintances. And indeed, that was generally the case, except for the films. Despite the shows subtitle “Dali: Painting and Film“ I didn’t expect to see what he’d done with Luis Brunel and Alfred Hitchcock and most unexpected of all – Walt Disney. As opposed to his surrealist paintings, the films to me seemed dreamlike and the symbolism totally unlike that which he portrayed in the paint medium – where the melting watches, charging jousters are bleak deserts are now cliches. I never will think of Dali again as a showy, self-promoting trickster but a hard-working and intense-thinking pan-artist.
My final show was the Philip Guston drawings at the Morgan, something I’d been eager to see since I learned they were coming this summer. I was profoundly disappointed: they had none of what I associate with Guston – that is gutsy, bold and startling works; instead they all seemed like sketches/ideas for fuller painted works.
Roberto Passon is a place Colette and I first ate at shortly after it opened and we’d wanted to go back. Our meal was altogether good with two hitches; first, I am simply not used to regular American-sized portions and both our starters – sautéed spinach and a beet salad and mains – bass and osso bucco; we could have easily gotten by with one shared starter and one shared ½ pasta portion. Second, the osso bucco special was almost double ($32) the price of the osso bucco pasta which came as an unwelcome shock since we had not been forewarned about its and other specials prices. Our bill, with wine, no bottled water, coffee or dessert was $110 before tip. (In retrospect, our luncheon meal at Jean-Georges was better in quality, portion size and price-quality, excepting the wine exploitation, and for almost the same final bill per couple, we left happier.)
Rounding out a weekend of culture was an evening performance of “Marie-Antoinette: The Color of Flesh” at St Luke’s, about the real queen, the real artist (le Brun) who painted her numerous times and the realistic Count Alexis de Ligne. The NYT loved this, its 4th or 5th production, even though it only opened last April elsewhere off-Broadway, and the actors and acting were wonderful. But I found the mixture of history, speculation on sex and intimacy, and references about war, America and mutilation (Iraq, get it audience!) made it everl-long and inconsistent. At its highest points, it’s quite good, however at its lowest ones, it’s very bad. My favorite was when “Toinette” cried out “I wish I were dead.” I was very tempted to stand up and answer, “Soon enough my dear, soon enough.”
Recent Comments