The kid

I didn’t see the sculpture I specifically remembered in the National Gallery and whose name and author I no longer recall and failed to note in my diaries. It was a beautiful bronze sculpture and used to be placed in the inside of the building, just by the entrance door. The figure of a young girl, head leaning over shoulder, bare skin, hands behind her back, embarrassed; and feet crossed, shy. Long hair that seemed to be thin and flowing although the reality of things as they are, that stiff and golden reality, would shoosh the bronze to remain still. The stillness in movement. It wasn’t there and I was too shy to ask the guards. So shy I almost put my hands behind my back and crossed my feet. The guard told me instead I did not need to put my purse in the locker since it was so small.

I remembered liking this gallery more, and certainly remembered it to be smaller in size and bigger in things, I mean, in my memory there were much more sculptures and much more paintings. And not as many people. Maybe it’s because it’s Saturday. And in my memory I was fifteen and it was a rainy day in October. I get a map.

I stand on room and as I’m looking at the pictures and writing my notes, in the first room I mean, a Japanese group that entered at the same time is already mingling at the door and following the blue flag, taking the last pictures and video shots and getting ready to part and visit maybe still another gallery or very possibly another country. I wonder if they think they are flies, the Japanese, for they rush through life as if their life were only 24 hours long.

In this room, number ten or eleven, ten I think, I remember of my visits to Uffizi in Florence and to Louvre in Paris and to other museums specially in Italy. Nothing seems to break through the roman baths and inspirations. And pastures.

There is although a sculpture … “De tre gratier lytter til amors sang”. I like this one. It doesn’t bring any new elements, and I have probably seen twenty like this. But I like the word “amor”, because that means “love” in portuguese, and I like the fact that Eros carries a lyre and it reminds me of my favourite lullaby story, the one about the birth of Hermes, and how he charmed the turtle the very day he was born – hungry and extraordinarily mature for his age, he meets a turtle on his way back from devouring the ox of the sun’s chariot and works his magic:

- Oh beautiful animal, graceful species, you with the voice so mild and so gentle tunes, you best singer of all, what are you doing here this late and why are you not singing, why are you not singing? What do you say? Can you whisper instead? Can you sing?

The turtle, more than confused, keeps staring and wondering what are the plans of the prodigious baby, who, without blinking twice, jumps and cuts the creature open and, using its shell to bring acoustics and its insides as the chords, creates the first musical instrument of all, the lyre, the methapore of inspiration and art itself. And what a wicked hungry smart little baby it took to create inspiration.

And that reminds me of my father and of the fact that I hadn’t heard of Little Red Hiding Hood until the age of six but way before that I knew more greek myths than many scholars. And could sing one or two hymns of Bacchus.

By the other paintings and sculptures I passed without much passion, writing down their characteristics, observing the contrasts and trying to read, as I was told an intellectual should, behind every strike of paintbrush, trying to find the genealogy of the thought and the dimensions and angles and what’s obvious and what’s not. Realistic paintings and naturalistic paintings. They have the same effect on me than realistic and naturalistic novels. Boredom. The way I see it art should go through, yes, but beyond reality. What good is there in seeing the thing on screen as you see it out of the screen, as seeing the portrait of a rock if there’s no more to the rock than rockness itself, if such a word should exist. I expect the plus to be in the painting. If nothing else, a wicked mirror.

The bait who got my eye was though “Natten”, by Peter Nicolai Arbo. It got my eye and my heart with its fairy tale traces and obscure motifs, with the horse and the pale lady riding the sky, and it reminded me of my cousin. She used to draw fantastic pale women so beautifully, and painted me a picture of a magic young with a purple cape, and that was just before she got blind and way before she stopped talking to me. Still, a beautiful night carrying a baby through the sky. The mystery in process.

I saw other paintings that would rather please my sister more, because she likes pictures of people. I don’t. I like movement and feelings, I like Munch’s Madonna for example. It’s many other things before it is a picture of a person.

Most of all I don’t like pictures of dismal ladies by the window looking out as if there was no hope left and yet hope is all that’s left, be it with the snow of sea or japanese lamp, or chin on the hand, I simply don’t like this position of the lady by the window passively waiting and waiting and waiting. My sister does, though. And she likes roman beauty standard lines and she likes ballet dancers and other sweet elements. Both of us hate clowns, at least.

I couldn’t stay much longer in Munch’s room, there were several teenagers there in an art class apparently and I don’t like noise when I’m looking at paintings. I think in many ways I’m a grumpy 80 years old lady.

I followed the laughter of two blonde girls in pony-tails and my soul was in peace. Oda Krohg’s “En abonnent på Aftenposten” on the wall, the picture of a small girl, also blond, with a pair of scissors cutting the newspapers. Simple ideas.

He third floor is closed and at the other half of the second the entrance is not for free. I browse the postcards in the museum store and I decide not to buy anything although posters and cards are on sale. I just walk out and see the sculptures in the brief garden. I just cross the street and think that official buildings are hardly very colorful and official art is hardly very happy. Everyone is trying to find the reasons and trying to find the answers and seeking the typical and the original and the essence. I prefer overflows – like cow and calf cut through half.

18.nov.2002