Edward Hopper

Can there be a more glorious way to spend a birthday than by staring at seventy oil paintings by an iconic American painter?* My favorite Hopper painting in the exhibit is “Room in Brookland
.” Hopper somehow makes the 1920s seem less chic, more forlorn. The woman is looking at the horizontal cityscape out the window. Her stylish flapper bob somehow becomes less chic. Her hair looks shorn and her neck looks cold and exposed. The fussy table of pink roses in a bare room shows a longing for the fussiness of the Victorian period.

In “Chop Suey, the face paint on the girls' faces is repugnant. The lines of mascara and lipstick are driven into layers and layers of thick oil paint. The girl’s chic beaver coat seems to hang indistinguishable on the wall.

The interplay between light and the city architecture is fantastic. As I walked around the city later, I couldn’t help but notice how wonderful all the Romanesque columns looked against the blue sky. I couldn’t relate to the negative views that the city is filled with emptiness and strangers. Without my children and husband, I felt that the city was so friendly on Monday- lots of tourists with little babies and happy expressions everywhere.

The funniest line I overheard in the Edward Hopper gift shop was “I’m looking for the magnet with the sailing boat on it. I don’t really like his other more-Hopperesq paintings.” That line made me laugh out loud as I paid for my post-cards. The Hopper exhibit is open at the National Gallery until January 21. Afterwards, it heads to Chicago.
Check out “Nighthawks” in person if you have the chance.

*(Even more glorious is to come home and realize that your husband, who didn’t know how to separate egg whites, has miraculously make a three-tired coconut cake from scratch! He even used a double boiler for homemade icing. (The coconut birthday cake is a new tradition we revived in honor of my great-grandmother Mabel who used to make them yearly for my 92-year-old grandfather. )

Happy Feast Day-St. Martin de Torres

In 4th Century France, when the "good news" of Christianity had just begun to spread among the crumbling Roman empire, a 15 year old boy was pressed into military service by his pagan father. As Roman solider, Saint Martin de Torres began to study this new faith. At age 21, Saint Martin was so moved by the plight of a cold, nearly naked beggar, that he took his beautiful cloak and cut it in half with his sword. One half Saint Martin gave to the beggar and one half he kept for himself. That night in a dream, Jesus came to him dressed in the half of the cloak Martin had given the beggar. Jesus said "what ever you do for the poorest of the poor, you do for me." Jesus also told Martin that his studying was over, it was time to take his vows to formally join the Catholic Church.

This story, which is passed down for over 1500 years, is a startling example of "charity." Charity is different from benevolence, which is defined as giving from your excess. Mother Theresa said that "charity is sharing when it hurts." It was an extremely cold day when Saint Martin meet the beggar. As a solider, he had only one cloak. Yet Saint Martin is so moved with compassion that he shares his cloak with another who has greater need of its warmth.

My family celebrated this feast day by going to Mass, donating a new men's coat to our parish's coat drive AND THEN, driving to the National Gallery to drink in this fantastic portrait of St. Martin by El Greco. (There are so many benefits to living in the Capitol City!)

El Greco's seven foot high picture is amazing to contemplate in person. St. Martin has a young mans face, gawky ears and peach fuzz on his upper lip. His eyes are downcast with long lashes. His face has such a feeling of peace, gentleness and contemplation. One hand steadies the house and the other deftly starts to tear his luxurious green cloak in half. The body of the beggar is equally amazing. Its as if, El Greco is forewarning us of Jesus' presence. The beggar's right hand is in a form of blessing and his other hand take the cloak with such simple thankfulness and honor. There is no shame in his being barefoot or naked. He takes St. Martin's cloak as easily as if it was one of our children asking us for a glass of water. (Isn't that what charity is? The act of sharing resources shouldn't be anymore complicated that giving your toddler a glass of water on a hot day).

There was so much to think about looking at this huge portrait. We were the only ones in the room--a Catholic family which prayed to St. Martin and grew closer to him in spirit while contemplating this devotional work of art. I told my husband later, "those pictures must be so lonely." El Greco's artwork originally hung in a famous chapel in Toledo, Spain. Now his work hangs in Gallery No. 28, a back room of the National Gallery which is barely visited by bored, tired tourists.

The National Gallery is open late, until 6 PM on Sundays. Jon & I are planning many more trips to stare at the Saints with our three little Catholics. What a great way to inspire a strong devotion to the Communion of Saints.

Kids + Art

How to get a child to love art

It’s okay for kids to listen to classical music on the radio instead of the concert hall. To watch movies instead of live theater performances. Yet, if you want to truly nurture an “art-art” lover, skip the mumbo jumbo of Baby Einstein painting books. Head right to the art museum.

This is impossible you say! Just a few pointers to encourage you to branch out from the Natural History Museum to take in the Hirshhorn & National Galleries during your stay in D.C.

Babies love art museums. Put the baby in a sling and as long as you go at a gentle pace, you can stare at pictures to your hearts content. Jon and I trade off baby duty + the hand of a relatively responsible older child. The other parent gets to hold the hand of the squirmy toddler.

Kids love sculpture. There is something really cool about being able to examine a life-like thing up close. Take a long stroll through the 18th sculpture hall which you usually brush past.

Spend time in the pre-Renaissance Galleries. The focuses of these paintings are almost exclusively religious. I use this as an opportunity to quiz them on their saints & bible stories. It’s truly inspiring to see how many different versions of our Blessed “Mama Mary” can exist in the same room.

We’ve had wonderful luck at the Black Box video installation at the Hirshhorn Museum on the Mall. One video showed 99 of the Guards at Buckingham Palace march in interesting formations. Another was a ballet of trucks. (Lex’s favorite!) This month is a highlight of
wolves.

Keep the visit very short with kids (under 25 minutes). It helps that in D.C. all of the Smithsonian art museums are free. When I visit art museums at other cities, we usually get a two-day pass. We plan for four hours over two days, rather than one massive time block. That way we can see what we want, without risking a toddler meltdown. We also take the kids to the Museum cafeteria for treats. That way one parent can handle three kids while the other gets some quiet gallery time.

Why go through this added hassle? It’s really beautiful to share a passion for art with your family. The kids talk about what pieces they like, and many times it surprises you. You and your spouse can take in a new painting (even if its at different times, holding the hands of different children) and you’ll have something exciting to talk about over dinner. Your family will make tired Museum Guards smile. And someday, hopefully, your kid will unconsciously feel happy and at home while staring at a new acquisition at the Louvre.

No Place Like Home

Rachel Whiteread'sGhost is currently on display on the second floor of the Modern Art Building at the National Gallery, in Washington D.C. Click on the above website to explore this amazing highlight of negative space. A few weeks ago, I took in this sculpture with Hannah. It's amazing to see up close. When you look at a room "opposite" you suddenly start to notice things like the ashes from the inside of a fireplace grate, or the odd hole that a door nob leaves in a door after its been removed.

This sculpture keeps coming back to me as I go about my basic housewifely duties. How much do I focus on the exterior surfaces of my home -- of the place mats that need to be laundered after jelly drips from a messy four-year-old-prepared peanut butter sandwich and the stain on the carpet from the dog who lost the cheerios that she was never supposed to be fed?

Meanwhile, my main importance as a mother is this "spiritual" force filling up the negative space with love, compassion, and copious acts of patience. Some days I'm more successful at this than others. (Today's bad allergy day being an example of "less successful.") But I'm rarely MINDFULL of how my spiritual energy is filling the house. I count my success as a mother by the tangible, clean laundry, and relatively decluttered floor. This sculpture shows me in a tangible manner how little the surface stuff is in relation to much larger, open, spiritual space.

I remind myself to be more faithful in my home by staring at sculptures on the weekend & writing during the weekdays. What unusual things do you do to remind yourself to practice your faith at home?

On the Book Shelf: Somerset Maugham

If you've only got an hour to peruse the 700 page masterpiece called "Of Human Bondage" you must first read the most arresting death scene where a mother, dying of childbirth complications, says goodbye to her nine year old son.

Then you must skip to the most fascinating, witty recount of a young art student's life in Paris at the turn of the century. These students are obsessed with that dashing new group of bohemians who called themselves "The Impressionists." If you've ever had a Monet watercolor reproduction hanging on your wall in college, you'll relish this historic insight into the lives of their contemporary "wannabees."

But, during the course of your reading as painters names are flung around as thickly as absinthe orders, and you're secretly gratified that the hours you spent in a darken lecture halls of Art 100 were not in vain, you may stumble into this passage. It will cause you to sit up and wonder if you've ever really studied the history of painting at all:

"A good painter had two chief objects to paint, namely man and the intention of his soul. The impressionists had been occupied with other problems, they had painted man admirably, but they had troubled themselves as little as the English portrait painters of the eighteenth century with the intention of his soul. . .

The greatest portrait painters have painted both man and the intention of his soul; Rembrandt and El Greco; it's only the second-raters who've only painted man... Correctness is all very well: El Greco made his people eight feet high because he wanted to express something he couldn't get any other way."

An arresting thought which makes reading Maugham's novels so addictive! Impressionists as simply the inventors of a new technique to record light. The painters put as little thought into the meaning behind their compositions as a camera does for a simple family photograph.

Now you think, for all your talk & Paris museum visits, have you ever really like the Impressionists? Did Monet with his lovely colored shadows ever paint his mistress so that you could see the contents of her soul? Or was did her face always remain inscrutable? Where the dabs of paint just a fad of technique like Jackson Pollack? Something cool to know about but never so absorbing as to force you to stand again and again in front of them probing for deeper meaning. In fact, the obvious popularity of the Impressionist makes them sort of an embarrassment. Rather like discovering at age 32 that you do not in fact like the lyrics of "Imagine"?

Is Maugham's criticism of the Impressionists valid? I leave it for you to debate, gentle readers. I know that I for one, will be seeking out more Rembrandts and El Grecos, to ponder at the National Galleries in the near future.

El Greco, Holy Trinity