Tag Archives: art

For a Short Time, Hanging Out With a Better Class of People

24 May

By Lanny Morgnanesi

Recently, my wife and I masqueraded as members of the American elite, the kind of people who might own a multi-million-dollar painting by French impressionist Claude Monet and then casually donate it to a museum. We didn’t lie or cheat or pose. We did no harm. It was all a matter of circumstance that befell us. It was just a bit of fun.

The little adventure began when my wife’s cousin, who lives in Princeton, suggested we visit Princeton University’s newly constructed art museum, a 145,000-square-foot building that opened in October 2025. It houses 117,000 works of art that the university has been collecting since 1755. Some pieces date to antiquity, like a Chinese urn from 2,000 or so BC. There are Renaissance paintings, modern works, and everything in between. Most pieces were given to the college by collectors who attended Princeton and occupied positions of influence, power and wealth.

We put the museum on our list of places to visit, and in late May, on a Friday afternoon, got in the car and drove there. As we approached the hallowed Ivy League institution and its magnificent buildings in the Gothic and Georgian styles (the contemporary new museum is quite the visual contrast), I worried it might be graduation day and we wouldn’t find a parking space, a problem on a normal day in Princeton. On the main drag of Nassau Street, it was clear something big was happening. There was no parking, and cars in front of us and behind us were – like us – desperately searching for an open spot either in a lot or on the street, going around blocks in circle after circle. What’s more, the sidewalks were jammed with people. People all over. The curious thing about them was 75 percent wore jackets of orange and black, Princeton’s colors. The jackets of the younger people were in the style of athletic gear, and their college year was on the back – 2025, 20221, 2019, 2016. The older people, meanwhile, wore faded plaid or stripped sports coats of orange and black, something from another era. Not knowing much about Princeton or the Ivy League, I assumed the tradition was to issue jackets to graduates, and that over the years the designs and styles have changed. I further assumed these jackets mostly sit in closets all year and are brought out only when alumni gather.

Eventually, while some distance from campus, a car pulled out in front of us and we took the spot. Damn lucky. This particular Friday, we soon learned, was not commencement but rather a four-day event called Alumni Reunions, where 25,000 graduates of all ages gather for awards, ceremonies, music, fireworks, sporting events, and a wide assortment of fun and festivals.

And there we were, pedigree-less, among the 25,000, as if we belonged.

From our perspective, we appeared to be alone among the non-alumni. The museum is free and open to the public, but overall, this day was not for us. Still, we made it this far and weren’t going home. We walked the streets with the alums, had lunch in a restaurant with them, then visited the art museum with them. They had no reason to believe we were not part of it all.

Princeton is one of the most elite colleges in America. It has an acceptance rate of between four and five percent, admitting 1,800 or so students a year from the 40,000 that apply. Years ago, my son applied (at my urging). We considered it a major accomplishment that he was granted an interview, but that was all he was granted.

While Princeton is a place where a graduate can become president of the college and later become president of the United States (Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879), the mass of alumni walking the streets for Alumni Reunions looked pretty normal. They could pass for regular people, especially the younger ones. They didn’t look especially gifted or intelligent or accomplished or even poised. The older graduates, I guess, while hunched a bit and overly gray, carried a degree of gravitas and looked more like the patricians they were.

We entered the museum and were startled by the seriousness, the rarity, and the variety of the collection. Most startling was that nearly every piece was once owned by a Princeton alum. How does someone come to own such precious treasure? Such people exist in a world I don’t know or understand and can’t comprehend. But these are the people I’m walking around with. And they, I believe, think I am one of them. How far off then can they be from me? That’s a major philosophical question with dramatic and substantial implications for leadership, government, and the direction in which the world is taken and who takes it there. But let’s not get into all that now.

The most eye-catching piece at the museum was a very green painting by Monet created around 1900. It is entitled, Water Lillies and Japanese Bridge. My wife, an artist, asked, “What is this doing here? It’s supposed to be in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Is this a copy?” Not a copy. Monet actually painted this scene 250 times. One of those paintings was purchased by a Princeton alum, William Church Osborn, Class of 1883, who later became president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His family eventually gave the painting to Princeton. Today it is worth, give or take, $100 million.

We strolled easily and enjoyed everything, appreciating the fine works on display and taking note of the more unusual orange costuming. There was positive energy in the air and we fed off it. The event had great meaning and purpose to all those around us, and although we had no right, we consumed the excess.

We stayed for maybe an hour and a half. As we exited the museum, I wondered if later than night everyone was going to get drunk on free booze and reminisce. I wondered if we could extend our visit and nonchalantly walk into an alum party like we walked into the museum. There is so much trust and brotherhood going on here, I guessed we probably could have. Didn’t see anyone checking IDs anywhere.

Instead, we walked to our Toyota RAV4, got on Rt. 206, then I-295, and made it home by dinner time, where we ate leftover spaghetti and watched Love is Blind: Sweden. Our short time as faux members of America’s elite had ended. The date, however, went on our calendar for next year.

Lanny Morgnanesi is the author of the novel, The King of Ningxia, a cold love story partially base on his experiences in China during the mid-80s, and the book of short stories, 24 Days With The Hollywood 26, where retired screen writers tell tales while quarantined during COVID. Both are available on Amazon.

Tags: , , , , , ,

After the virus, there will be decorating

20 Apr

Milan_Cathedral        

By Lanny Morgnanesi

Easter came and there were no large family gatherings or in-church services. There was only Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who sang for free while the world  listened.

Bocelli said his was not a performance. He called it a prayer and the event was advertised as Music for Hope.  It took place in the Duomo di Milano, one of Italy’s most breathtaking cathedral. Bocelli was accompanied by a musician playing the world’s largest pipe organ. Otherwise, save for the unseen camera crew, he was alone.

Inside the cathedral, the tenor sang a few piece of sacred music. People watching live on Youtube saw a pantheon of statues, stained glass, etchings, carvings, relief work, marble, enormous pillars, icons and more. As Bocelli sang, there were cutaways to the empty streets of great cities like Milan, Paris, New York and London. After 25 minutes or so, the blind singer stop singing and walked unaccompanied down a corridor, through an enormous door and onto the Duomo steps. There was no one outside in the locked-down city, the epicenter of the Coronavirus in Italy. The small country of 60 million has reported 159,000 cases and 20,400 deaths.

bocelli new

Andrea Bocelli

Bocelli stood on the steps and returned to his singing. In English, he sang the 18th century Christian hymn, Amazing Grace. There was no music at first. After a time, the production people layered in a full orchestra. When the song ended, there was silence, and the cameras shutdown. The prayer was over.

The concert lasted 30 minutes and, so far, has been watched by at least 37 million people.

Andrea Bocelli’s music, as intended, gave us hope. Even more inspiring might have been the miracle and magnificence of the Duomo di Milano, the largest cathedral in Italy. Construction on it began in 1386, just a few decades after the Black Death killed 100 million people worldwide. Many believe the depths, damage and darkness of the plague is what spawned the creativity, commerce and optimism of the European Renaissance.

Duomo interior

Interior of the Duomo di Milano

The amazing thing about the Duomo is its utter completeness as a work of art. The virtuoso violinist Itzak Perlman has said that in the world of symphonic music there is no such thing as a casual note. With the Duomo, there is no such thing as a casual surface. Every piece of wood or stone has been slaved over and loved into a masterpiece. In Renaissance Italy, the greatest and most famed artists would fight for commissions to illustrate or decorate a surface. And great time would be spent on them. Lorenzo Ghiberti spent 27 years on the doors of the Baptistery in Florence. When Michelangelo saw those doors he called them “the Gates of Paradise.” The doors to Milan’s Duomo may not be as famous, but they are covered in jaw-dropping art work. Mark Twain, in Innocents Abroad, said this about the Duomo doors:

“The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures —  and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest …”

            You look at a place like the Duomo di Milano and quickly comprehend that no such monument would be built today or could be built today. It’s a representation of a now unachievable achievement. The Duomo was a continuous work in progress for nearly 600 years. That’s how long it took to complete. The expense was enormous and funds were not always available. In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte, about to become King of Italy, ordered the facade to be finished and said he’d pay for it. He never did.

Duomo doors

Door engravings, the Duomo di Milano

The art and culture of the Renaissance arose as great fortunes in banking and commerce were being made. Wealthy, influential families like the Medici and the Borgia possessed incomparable riches and used their fortunes on the arts. It was expected and something of a requirement. What was created was to be shared with regular people and offered up to God in thanks. Great new wealth also has been amassed in our era through the likes of Facebook, Google, Apple, PayPal and others. But it is used differently. There is good being done, but it’s a different kind of good.

Screenshot_2020-04-19 From Warren Buffett to Bill Gates How auto dealerships are attracting a whole new class of investor

Buffett, Gates, Soros

True, the rich create foundations to better mankind (and get a nice tax deduction for it). George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a handful of billionaires who have contributed much of their wealth toward improving the human condition. The other side of this benevolence, however, are efforts to change the world in more entrepreneurial ways. The excessive profits of enormously successful companies, for example, might be channeled into no-profit or low-profit ventures, like building space ships or driver-less cars. Intentions are good and hopes for mankind are high, but the goal is ultimately money. Rarely do we see artistic creations or architecture wonders (the Brooklyn Bridge is an older example of this) that people feel part of and gravitate toward.

Apple is said to have spent about $5 billion on its campus for 12,000 workers in Cupertino, California, yet by any stretch it is not considered a great wonder of the world. (For that money is should be.) Today’s really impressive modern architecture is found mostly in the Middle East and Asia. The world’s tallest building is in Dubai. Eye-poppers are all over Singapore, Malaysia and Shanghai. Still, all this is so very different from building a church that takes 600 years to finish and is so magnificent that, even when surrounded by the sad solitude of a catastrophic pandemic, looking upon it makes us feel good.

Hearing Bocelli and seeing the Duomo I think of the Renaissance and whether a new one might be on its way. When our pandemic turns to dust, will we find a vigorous need to look upon life as new and to create things never before created, perhaps experience joy in ways that have been forgotten? Will we insist on engraving the mundane with the spectacular and seek enjoyment from even the routine?

graffiti-1

Graffiti art

Trying to fathom a modern day equivalent to the high art of the Duomo surfaces, I stumbled on a harsh and incongruous comparison  — inner-city surfaces covered in graffiti. These markings, considered art by the best of their creators, deface yet celebrate. They spring from repression but in a perverse way speak to optimism. Can anything about tomorrow be learned from the spray paint on walls, bridges and subway cars?

After the population decline of the Black Plague, wages for laborers went up (high demand, low supply) and the price of land went down (low demand, high supply). Inequality eased off. Opportunity abounded. The Renaissance (literally The Rebirth), and later The Enlightenment, burst forth, light from dark. So what happens to us and our culture when the all-clear sounds?

Duomo arches

The Duomo

This could be our big chance for change, unity and joint hope. Let Bocelli keep singing. Let the light shine each evening on the Duomo Di Milano. And let everyone else search out and lay claim to a surface in preparation for its decoration. The unadorned will no longer be accepted.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Danger – I’m talking about race (but also art)

26 Mar

cab calloway-2

I sat down to write about creativity but will begin with race. I’ll get to creativity later.

Normally, race is a subject best avoided. Even good-intentioned statements can offend. I don’t mind offending, as long as I offend everyone. When I discuss race, I generally keep these three precepts in mind:

  • All people are basically the same.
  • Even so, likes prefer likes.
  • Whether acknowledged or not, every group thinks it is better than the other.

I’m told that, historically, each tribe of Native Americans referred to themselves as “the human beings” or “the people,” while the names they gave other tribes were epithets describing creatures who were less than human.

That’s us! Is it not?

Dividing us by race and setting us against each other seems like a cruel thing for the Creator to do, but I guess there was a reason for it. Giving us the capacity to enslave others, however, is too harsh to even remotely understand. That capacity is what rightfully gives racial issues their hypersensitivity.

I can wish everyone wasn’t so sensitive, but there is too much working against it.

While smart people don’t discuss race, I have to admire those who do. One is Bob Huber, a writer for Philadelphia Magazine. In the March edition of the magazine, he wrote a piece called, “Being White in Philly.”  In it he tells stories of race from a white perspective.

“Everyone might have a race story, but few whites risk the third-rail danger of speaking publicly about race, given the long, troubled history of race relations in this country and even more so in this city,” he wrote. “Race is only talked about in a sanitized form, when it’s talked about at all, with actual thoughts and feelings buried, which only ups the ante.”

So let’s talk!Philly Mag

After Huber’s article, many did. This was his intention. There were a number of public forums around town and the online version of the article – as of March 25 – had 6,292 comments.

The article, among other things, mentions how whites, upon entering a local convenience store, hold open the door longer for blacks than for whites in order not to offend them. Later, Huber quotes a Russian woman who thinks blacks do nothing but sit on their front porches smoking marijuana. It’s that kind of material.

In response, the only full-time African-American employee at Philadelphia Magazine wrote a counter piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She described her coworker’s message as: “black people are essentially what’s wrong with the city and that white people who live here are afraid of them.”

My test of the article’s validity is not its truthfulness but its honesty. Fair or unfair, right or wrong, the piece accurately describes how some white people feel. It would be dishonest to argue they don’t feel that way. Whether or not they accurately portray blacks is a totally different issue

I think it is good to know how people feel. I want to know how people feel about me, even when they don’t like me. My natural assumption is many will not like me, or at least think I am less that I am, certainly less than they are.

In the extreme, this may anger me, but I can live with it.

I understand that others may not, cannot and will not.

But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing about creativity. Mainly, I want to know if one race is more apt to be creative than another – specifically whether minorities are more willing and more capable than the majority in advancing art.

In the past I’ve had thoughts on this. They resurfaced recently when I heard a radio interview with a black record producer. By his own admission, this producer is not your normal black record producer. In order to set up a story about his style of producing, he told the show’s host that black artists create something then quickly leave it behind to create the next thing. White people, he said, go back and revisit what already has been created.

Then, in a twist, he said, “I’m that white guy.”

Twist aside, I saw truth in his stereotype, especially in the progress of music. By the time white bands, for example, took up the blues, black artists had left it way behind.

Shortly after this interview, PBS aired an American Masters episode called, “The Blues Brothers Band Remembers Cab Calloway.” The Blues Brothers movie, of course, clearly depicts the tendency for whites to revisit the old. More interesting was a specific story in the documentary about the legendary Cab Calloway.

John Landis, the movie’s director (white), told how he wanted Calloway (black) to sing his 1931 classic  “Minnie the Moocher” in the movie and to do it in the original style. When Calloway saw the music charts, he expressed disgust and said something like, “What the hell is this?”

He could not comprehend why anyone would want to put a near ancient rendition into a contemporary movie. Landis eventually talked him into it, but it was completely foreign to Calloway.

I was amazed at how closely this little story paralleled what the black record producer had said. The record producer might not fit the stereotype, but Cab sure did. I wondered just how deep this pattern went, or even if it were true (Little Anthony and the Imperials, after all, still perform their hits.)

One of the shockingly bad things about art in any form is that it so often is a copy of something done by an innovator. I believe it was Paul Gauguin (not a minority but definitely off the path) who suggested that there are only two kinds of artists: plagiarists and revolutionaries. It could be said that the plagiarists have a stake in the status quo while the revolutionaries want to destroy it.

Could this be the case with the white-black creative dichotomy described by the record producer and illustrated by Cab Calloway?

While few want to discuss race, I’d like to hear from people on this. Let’s forget about Philly Mag and the suppressed hostilities of whites for a while and talk about whether muses favor those who have been pushed outside the mainstream. What drives a person to originality and risk when so many others are content to stay stuck on what’s popular?

Is white innovation a rarity? Surely there are white revolutionaries. In a pinch I could name 10. (Pollock yes; Presley no.) Do white innovators have to try harder, or must they – unlike blacks – possess a genetic mutation or be social misfits?

I can’t speak first hand to this. I’m hoping others can. Please write.

By Lanny Morgnanesi

Tags: , , , , , , ,

What good are crowds when you’re dead?

20 Feb

Mulberry Tree

Yesterday I stood in line with hundreds of people waiting to see a show by an artist who, while alive, sold only one painting.

The “Van Gogh Up Close” exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum was a collection of paintings done in the last four years of the artist’s life. Many were completed at an asylum where he was being treated for mental illness.

In the context of his time (the late 1800s), his work was revolutionary. It was unacceptable – almost a joke — to the majority of the established art world. Vincent Van Gogh, in his life, was a failure. It is a sad thing that greatness has to suffer in its time because it is so far ahead of its time.

The rest of us are so slow to catch up.

“This was done by a free mind,” my wife, an artist and teacher, said. “My young students can do work like this.”

Van Gogh self-portrait

She did not mean they reach Van Gogh’s level of artistry, craft and creativity. She meant that like Van Gogh their minds are unshackled.

It takes time to shackle a mind, but in the end they get locked down pretty tight.

In many ways, the reaction to new art is like the reaction to great scientific discovery, which is said to have three stages:

  • First, people deny that it is true.
  • Then they deny that it is important.
  • Finally they credit the wrong person.

Well, at least Van Gogh got his credit … belated though it was.

Tags: , , ,