Visual Arts
This week has been a depressing one for me as a writer. First,
Signs
bowled me over with its terseness. Movies don’t usually remind me how much
easier it is to tell a story with the characters there, flashing their
facial expressions and flaunting their tones of voice. The medium has so much
power that producers can be infinitely lazy and still get away with it; if, just once,
they do the work, the effect is quite depressing for those of us confined to print.
Even a live storyteller can convey so much more than a flat page - I haven’t
listened to anyone reading flat lately, but I recall the magic of reading aloud. If
you don’t know the story, you have to be a sort of psychic, foreseeing the end
of the sentence early on, guessing the tone on the fly…
So I have a stunning image of a moon crashing into a planet on my
desktop at work. My more cynical co-workers (if any are more cynical than
yours truly) might take it as a comment on the future of the company in the
current economic conditions. A big ocean makes for a mighty big splash. I’m
supposed to be tossing my own moon at other large objects in
Colony, but the lovely artwork on the screen is so much more
impressive than the picture in my mind.
As if that weren’t enough visual depression for one week, I went to
the Museum of Fine Arts last night. Admission is free on Wednesdays, though
I discovered you have to stand in line to get your free ticket now. The free
ticket says $15.00 on it - either they’re trying to impress us freeloaders with
just how much revenue we’re depriving them of, or there’s some sort of
accounting scam going on somewhere.
Where was I? I forgot to check out the textile room, my personal favorite,
but I saw the temporary exhibit of Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century,
from local collections. Some of the miniatures were amazing - I almost believed
that velvet sleeve was popping out of the painting at me, and the rug…you
have to see the rug to believe it. From across the room, the landscapes looked
like light was coming out of them. Looking at tiny, fantastic landscapes (and
even the ones named for real places were invented) I was newly discouraged
in my attempts to describe worlds, or even just trees, in words.
Maybe reading a little poetry would cheer me up.