Artsy Fartsy?

I like art.  For years people thought I was going to be an artist because I happen to be really good with pencil and paper.  I've been drawing since I was two, and some of my drawings have been featured on programs for Christmas programs and such through my school.  It got to the point where that's what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, before I had even an inkling of how the art world actually worked.  I grew up in a fairly artistic/creative family: my mom is an incredible artist, much better than I could ever hope to be at this point, and my paternal grandfather does beautiful oil paintings and ink drawings.  Even my dad, the engineer, can put pen to paper and come up with something that looks good, even if what comes out does look more architectural.  All of my three siblings and I have some kind of art talent, even my youngest brother who was never "artsy" like the rest of us but who is now going to school for pre-architecture.  I guess you could say that even though my family certainly doesn't fit the bill for an "artist family" or a "family of artists", we all grew up with a vast appreciation for the arts.


I don't think I was ever really moved by art, so to speak, until that first time at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in 1997 about a month after the museum's opening.  There I was surrounded by Andy Warhols and Roy Lichtensteins, as well as some Picassos and works by other painters I had never heard of before and even now probably couldn't tell you their names or what the works were.  Even though my family is far more one (in general) for the "classical fine arts": Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Velázquez, etc., there is still an appreciation for some of the more modern and abstract artists like Picasso.  Though I don't think it's possible to not have an appreciation for Picasso, but maybe that's just me.  In our first visit to Toledo in 1998 we discovered more of El Greco's work.  El Greco, the Greek-born painter who'd made Toledo and Spain his home, and his unique painting style of elongated shapes and bodies with contrasting light and shadow.  A few years later (more like six...) in a trip to Madrid, we took a trip to the Prado museum, one of the finest art museums on the planet.

In Spain, every schoolkid grows up knowing about Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas, possibly similar to the way most American children grow up fascinated by Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory with its warped clocks, wondering what in the world....  The Persistence of Memory and Warhol's Marilyn Monroe and Campbell's Soup cans.  Either way, Las Meninas is highly ingrained into the Spanish art psyche.  In person, the painting is massive.  Probably 6 ft. x 8 ft.  And as with just about every other genuinely beautiful work of art, it looks that much more impressive in person.  The Prado has to be in my Top 2 favorite museums in the world, if it's not on top.  Granted, I have never been to the Louvre in Paris, but at this point, I don't care anymore.  I think fewer people have visited the Prado, and that's good enough for me.  And just for its collection of Spanish classic art alone, the Prado gets my vote.  Anyway, in my second trip to the Prado, I also got to enjoy Velázquez's painting of the Count-Duke of Olivares, a valido of the king of Spain and in charge of the Spanish territories in the Netherlands (there were three or four of them), whose county-duchy was located in the area of Sevilla where my family had lived for six years.  The first house we lived in in the capital town (Olivares) was located on a street named "Enrique de Guzmán", the first Count-Duke's full name.  A print of Velázquez's (who was from Sevilla) painting of the Count-Duke hangs in the town hall.

But perhaps my all-time favorite "art experience" was on my second trip to Toledo with my study abroad group in January 2008.  In a visit to a small chapel located in a fairly isolated part of town with the intention of viewing one of El Greco's works that was not hanging in a museum, I had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.  Turning a corner at the entrance, there it was.  El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz, literally, in all its glory.  I was stupefied.  Seeing Las Meninas  in person, while impressive, was more like checking an item off my list and saying "Well, I've done that."  Even seeing Picasso's Guernica at the Reina Sofía a few days prior to the trip to Toledo wasn't half as impressive, and that piece has incredible value to my family and me after having spent 2 1/2 years living in the Basque Country and visited the town of Gernika numerous times.  No, seeing El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz (or, technically, El Entierro del Señor de Orgaz) was far more holistic, far more meaningful.  I'm not even sure why.  Maybe it was because while still being considered one of El Greco's finest works, it still remains fairly unknown because of the fact that it's not in a museum.  Or maybe it's just because of El Greco's mastery of his craft and his usage of color and light.  Or maybe it's just because it's a beautiful work of art and the realization that I was not in a museum, that I was in a small little church in Toledo and was witnessing a work of art by one of the greatest painters of his time and one of Spain's finest artists (regardless of the fact that El Greco was not in fact Spanish, most people still consider him to be one of their own, as just about all of his fame came from his patronization by the Spanish royalty and Spain as a whole).

Maybe another time I'll go into some of my other favorite works of art, but for now, I'll just leave you with my favorite art experience.