Revelation/Response

This weekend we visited the deYoung for Revelations, Art from the African American South. Some of you know that I wanted to be a painter, and studied art before becoming a mama and going in another direction. This exhibit knocked me out a little.Revelations/ResponseIn the Village of TholonetLearning about the lines the simple linesof Cezanne and late Picasso and Modiglianiand the ceaseless celebration of Monet’s colorsLearning the names of the men the white menwho make the art deemed worthyof committing to memorygetting lost behind their eyes

In the Jeu de PaumesSeeing the work of female impressionists for the first timeMuted, sensual, pale figures in white dresseson rose colored seasEach silver framed work a perfumed powderdusted decoupaged superimposedon the male canonDiscovering that a woman seesAt the de YoungStaring into giant canvases by black men and womenNames I have never heard of until todayQuiltlike color blocks, that should be as famous as a MondrianParker's AntiMass: Burnt embers of an Alabama church ascending, that should be as famous as GuernicaBlack men in the Garden of Eden, with more than whispers of Manet and GauguinA different accounting of life in a body, a new gazeHistory is written by presscrank and purseholderA smug insulation that renders so many miracles of brush and word unseenArt has missed the full accounting, and made us liarsWe lie to ourselves and to each our progenyAbout what is realWe see such a tiny slice of the infinities of life in a bodyAnd call it a wholeness-#deyoungmuseum #RonaldLockett #robertcolescott #Corneliaparker#purvisyoung #thorntondial #art #revelations #painting