"LIVE" Art & Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

For the past five months it's been "Showtime!" for art museums in the Washington DC area. The National Gallery of Art held two blockbuster shows–"the first comprehensive survey of Edward Hopper's career to be seen in American museums outside New York in more than 25 years," and a show of "the most comprehensive survey of Turner's work ever presented in the United States." The Phillips Collection held a major show of Impressionists by the Sea, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art had a major exhibition of the work of Asher B. Durand.

Still smarting from missing the show "Frederick Remington: The Color of Night" back in 2003, I now know to make an extra effort to see important shows as they come up. So I've spent the last several Sundays in galleries, feasting my eyes on the magnificent and rare art being shown. And it reminded me of something a music appreciation professor I had in art school once said: "The difference between hearing live music and listening to a recording is the same difference between frozen orange juice and fresh-squeezed." Same for reproductions and "live" art.

Looking at reproductions in a book or online, you cannot begin to appreciate the subtleties and nuances you see when face to face with a real canvas. The size alone can be an enormous factor in how you experience the work: daunting when large, wondrous and intimate when small (I still remember being awed by the diminutive sizes of some of the Van Goghs in a National Gallery exhibition years ago-paintings I had thought to be much, much larger). As good as color reproduction is these days, it doesn't even come close to an original, even with the best of printing methods. The vibrancy of color, the subtleties of application, rarely come out in reproductions of any kind. The thinness of the paint in a shadow area... the thick physicality of the built-up paint in the light areas... the shock of a pure red daub of paint against a sea of gray... Blues are bluer, yellows scream at you, and reds are electric when seen in real life (gee... this sounds like a laundry detergent commercial!). All these things get lost when a painting gets photographed and then reproduced. I have learned that if I buy a catalog of a show, I need to look at the reproductions as soon after the show as possible, so I can remember how far off the prints are from the original. And that way, be able to have some continued appreciation for just how great the original painting really was.

So the next time you get a chance to see "live" art, make an effort to go see it. Even if you've seen the paintings a thousand times in books, online or in magazines, go see the real thing. I guarantee it'll be a whole new experience.

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Over the years, as I'd drive through central and western Pennsylvania I'd see ads painted on the sides of barns saying, "Treat Yourself to the Best–Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco!" I don't advocate the use of chewing tobacco, but I DO recommend "Treating Yourself to the Best" and seeing "live" art when you can.