Mary Magdalene by Pietro Perugino, Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy.
While visiting the Pitti Palace in Florence I asked a rather stern-looking guard: Of all the work here, which one is your favorite? After some thought, he had me follow him back into another room. He went up and looked closely at a small painting and then stepped back…
There.
It was a portrait of Mary Magdalene by Pietro Perugino, a teacher of Raphael. The reason he appreciated it was unexpected: it reminded him of someone he once knew.
Art can be a pretty self-indulgent activity with consequences being a predictable sensibility and closed communities. Throughout my life art has served as a connection to the lives of others. I would be interested to see/read more of similar experiences. What happens when you ask someone to share their favorite artwork?
D,
For me, art is a pretty self-indulgent activity. I don’t often ask people to share their favorite artwork. Maybe I can start now. D, what is your favorite artwork?
Last summer, at the Städel Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt, I asked Karl “What is your favorite painting in this room?”
But he pointed at a wooden sculpture that we then enjoyed together. As a result, this sculpture is vividly in my mind.
I like visiting museums with other people.
When I visited the Vatican two Novembers ago I was surprised by Perugino’s spectacular fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It rivals Michelangelo’s ceiling frescos and far surpasses anything by his student Raphael, in my opinion. My friend Bob was not so impressed by Raphael’s frescos either. There, I must have asked for an opinion. D., I appreciate this post because I realize how little I have been concerned with other people’s likes and dislikes in art.
K.
My favorite artwork? Good question.
I am curious about a series of photographs by the French artist Cyprien Gaillard. I like that they are simple and unassuming.
They are haunting images of the architectural monuments of French suburban life and they reconsider our idyllic tendencies, exposing our social and geographical dislocation.
http://www.fuorisalone.it/2006/eventi_jogabonito_holygrounds.php?PHPSESSID=3de78e5020d04700d9bd6374de901c04
For an artist at her or his own show, asking people what their favorite is can be a good way to get feedback. One may not agree with the reasons given, but they can lead to new or refreshed insights. For the same reason, I get a lot more out of a museum or gallery visit if I’m with someone with different tastes.
The guard’s comment reminds us that an artwork speaks to each viewer differently, something explored in a previous post.
What happens if someone asks me what is my favorite artwork? I find it impossible to answer. But the question could work with more limited scope. So why don’t we ask D what his favorite work in the Pitti was?
S.
“…favorite work in the Pitti was?”
I agreed with the guard.
Too late, I see. But D, are these photographs really a favorite, or just what you’re most interested in at the moment?
You’ve reminded me of a terrible/wonderful/funny experience. Many years ago I was on a second date with a man who would eventually become my lover and best friend. It was our first visit as a couple to an art museum (MOMA). After a while I asked him to show me his favorite painting in MOMA. He took me to a Matisse and not one of my favorites. I asked him just how much he liked it and why. He explained that he found it to be extremely sensual. I really didn’t see that. He looked to his left and then he looked to his right. We were alone in the room. He leaned in and slowly and sensually licked the Matisse. I could see a hint of dampness on the canvas where his tongue had been. I was shocked and disapproving but have ever since been aroused by that particular painting. And if we’re ever in MOMA together think twice before asking me to show you my favorite painting.
Richard.
Your lick reminds me of another lick.
Back in the early 90s I took some high school kids to SFMOMA to see some art. They were good kids, but they came from very difficult backgrounds and not one of them had been to an art museum before. Tyrus was particularly excited and when he entered the first gallery he was confronted by a smallish Rodin sculpture of a hulking figure. Tyrus, never one to back down, responded by aggressively approaching it with clenched fists and stopped only at the last moment before his “licking”. It seemed like a fair response.
I don’t know if it was Tyrus’s favorite piece but he sure liked to talk about it.
I do believe that Dante would have imagined an eighth level of hell had he known about spam.
I deleted the spam comment. But even spam can give rise to art:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=spam-ku&btnG=Search
Yeesh, I missed the whole spam episode — poor me…. But I must admit to enjoying following you guys around and listening to your stories. I learn a lot from all kinds of people, including museum guards — and AandP correspondents.
Birgit, the image that accompanies your post is so lovely that I keep coming back to it just for sheer pleasure.
The question for the museum guard is kin to some of my favorites — I sometimes play games with my friends when we are at exhibits or museums — which piece would you take home and hang over the couch? Which would you hang where it faced you over morning coffee? Where you could see it lying in bed? Which do you love in its proper (probably museum) setting but wouldn’t really want to have in your house? Which one(s) would you think of building an entire building just to house?
I used to be a “guard” at the Phillips Collection in DC. Just a gallery moniter really. The person who tells you not to touch (or lick!) the art. It was interesting, wonderful, boring at the same time. I developed intimate relationships with a couple of Kokoshka landscapes, a wonderful Soutine and a tiny Seurat study. Still don’t like Renoir much, even after a few months with him. I heard all sorts of comments by visitors and felt that invisibility of being part of the furniture, a non-entity, just there to tell you where the bathroom is. Some people talked to me, but not many. I still have trouble with the often stuffy nature museum “culture.”
But that’s sort of off topic. Recently I began asking students on the first day of class who their favorite artist is. I have them write it down on their contact sheet. Mostly I get the usual suspects like Van Gogh and Michelangelo. And some students say they don’t know any! Talk about blank slate! But ocasionally a student puts someone down I’ve never heard of, a painter they just looked at in a magazine or something like that. And I get introduced to a new artist. Fun stuff.
Karl, how could anyone not be blown away by Raphael’s frescos at the Vatican?
I don’t think I could name a favorite artwork if I had to. For me the thrill is in the discovery of something that shifts my view of the world, and of course that’s a moving target. On a recent trip to Italy, I was very moved by a number of things, including the Raphael stanze at the Vatican, Piero’s frescos in Arezzo, and the David. Those were all pretty expected (though certainly not disappointing!). But there were also some things that caught me by surprise. Like the inlaid marble floors outside the Duomo in Siena. And the ceilings of the Uffizi! I think I was the only person in the museum who was looking up.
I also saw an exhibition ten years ago of Aboriginal paintings at the Natural History Museum here in L.A. that was a revelation. And lately I’ve been fascinated by information graphics, and the insight that Edward Tuffte brings to them.
More often than asking people to tell me their favorite artwork, I find myself asking for and giving recommendations of books and music. Years ago a writer friend found out I was a fan of Thomas Pynchon, and he suggested I check out Don DeLillo. And I can’t remember who first introduced me to Radiohead, but I’m sure glad they did.
Karl, how could anyone not be blown away by Raphael’s frescos at the Vatican?
David,
I don’t know. I was surprised myself. It must have something to do with the context and the competition. I felt that compared to the other artwork in the vicinity, the Raphael frescos were not as powerful as I had always imagined they would be, looking in books. The Sistine Chapel ceiling frescos are infinitely more powerful than anything I had imagined.
Karl, I felt just the opposite.
The Sistine ceiling paintings are amazing, of course, but seeing them in context, as opposed to isolated as closeups in books, I felt that they had to compete visually with an awful lot of other stuff. Not compete in terms of quality (they’d win all contests), but in terms of visual distraction. Too much artwork in one room! And they were so far away up there on the ceiling. It was like going to hear your favorite classical guitarist in a stadium, or perhaps a stadium with several stages, and other excellent musicians are playing other pieces at the same time! The performances might be great, but it’s hard to hear them.
The Raphaels, on the other hand, command and enhance the rooms they are in. Everything in those stanze works together, and creates an amazing environment. And when the tour groups move on, after their cursory stop on the way to the Sistine, you are in there alone with the paintings. It’s better than being a Pope :)