Thoughts in an Art Museum

Silence

No, soft humming of a… heater? Occasional squeak of shoes, rustle of clothes, the soft scratch of my pencil, distant cheerful chatter

Quiet

The only light is on the paintings, I write from the residual of it

Thick, ornate, golden frames encompass, surround, protect grey and beige landscapes

Some frames are simple rectangles, others are almost as big as the painting they encompass

Does anyone give these frames a second thought?

The ornate swirls, leaves and flowers, someone crafted those too

I stand rooted in the center, surrounded by landscape, clear skies, rivers, oceans, humble houses

Worlds made up of mere brushstrokes

The silence holds me, comforts me, becomes a part of my being. It is almost reverent, respectful of each small window into a vast world, unwilling to disturb them

Each painting has a sky, peeking through clouds, trees or houses, or proudly on display in subtle ombres, or front and center in faintly different shades of blue

Still I am rooted, too afraid to commit to examining one. I know that the moment I do I will be sucked into the world, the colors, the brushstrokes

Examining, admiring, every little detail

How much effort goes into a single tree, a single branch, a single leaf? How much thought went, goes, into each stroke, each line?

A single flick of a wrist could become a bird in flight, seemingly random splotches, when layered on top of each other, become a lush tree

People come and go, slowly walking by the paintings, and I wonder how they can just walk by

When I am rooted

Can they take it all in?

My phone buzzes, still I am rooted, still I am in a trance, unwilling to go back to the real world

I am in a world of golden frames and dull landscapes. I am sucked into a world that others just walk by, but someone 200 years ago decided to stop. They planted themselves for hours to take in the scenery, capture it, adapt it with their paints into the visual language of brush strokes. And now here I am, planted and growing roots, and watered by gold and paint and brush strokes, viewing distant worlds through a paintbrush, viewing seemingly mundane scenes with such intensity, engaged with a world in a way that I never experience otherwise

The spell slowly slowly fades, I slowly slowly feel that I have drunk my fill, the comforting silence, the innocent paintings, have refreshed me

French Coast Scene – Charles-Francois Daubigny

And so I step closer to one

The intricate details become mere brushstrokes, dots of color

A swath of browns becomes distant buildings making up a town

The sky is elegant thick scribbles

A strip of blue is a vast ocean, with dots for ships

Careless strokes are careless blue flowers, tousled in the wind

My interest, my appreciation, my respect deepens

Blobs of color create a scene when under the masterful eye of a painter

I step even closer, the texture of the paint strokes stand out, the glossiness of it probably from preserving the painting

I notice subtle shades of pink in seemingly random spots

A stripe of teal suddenly stands out

I have drunk my fill

Onto the next

Yet I still linger