Take the Good with the Bad
01 August 2020 Filed in: American Art | Antique Picture Frames
What happens when you buy a frame that has a painting in it by a well known artist but he’s well know for New York City scenes and you’re now the proud owner of a floral still life... you take the painting out of the frame.
So here we are on a rainy Sunday in New York City. The decorated vase of daisies sits atop a patterned table cloth and next to a painted dish. The rich tapestry of patterns and colors, the energy, celebrated in Alfred S. Mira’s city scenes of Greenwich Village and New York City are present in this work. But does anybody care? When the art market is the last and final stop, the arbiter of good taste and value, the answer is an unequivocal NO.
But when you’re buying art for art’s sake, well then that’s another story. Truth be told, I bought this specifically for the frame. I paid little attention to the painting. But on the train ride home (see last pics for what I mean) I took a closer look. A closer look at the brushstrokes, the palette, the delicacy and subtlety, the expression of the moment. And then it struck me. To talk the talk, we must also walk the walk. We must not pick and choose the select moments, the select scenes, and weave them into what we claim to be as a complete understanding. How can we appreciate the work of an artist like Mira by completely disregarding other facets of his life, his work, his moments? Does a still life of flowers have less value than a ‘still life’ of a street?
Perhaps we can all learn a little by appreciating all of the parts of the whole. For it is only when we know the whole history that we can understand it, learn from it and grow. Ya gotta take the good with the bad folks. ;-) hkv
So here we are on a rainy Sunday in New York City. The decorated vase of daisies sits atop a patterned table cloth and next to a painted dish. The rich tapestry of patterns and colors, the energy, celebrated in Alfred S. Mira’s city scenes of Greenwich Village and New York City are present in this work. But does anybody care? When the art market is the last and final stop, the arbiter of good taste and value, the answer is an unequivocal NO.
But when you’re buying art for art’s sake, well then that’s another story. Truth be told, I bought this specifically for the frame. I paid little attention to the painting. But on the train ride home (see last pics for what I mean) I took a closer look. A closer look at the brushstrokes, the palette, the delicacy and subtlety, the expression of the moment. And then it struck me. To talk the talk, we must also walk the walk. We must not pick and choose the select moments, the select scenes, and weave them into what we claim to be as a complete understanding. How can we appreciate the work of an artist like Mira by completely disregarding other facets of his life, his work, his moments? Does a still life of flowers have less value than a ‘still life’ of a street?
Perhaps we can all learn a little by appreciating all of the parts of the whole. For it is only when we know the whole history that we can understand it, learn from it and grow. Ya gotta take the good with the bad folks. ;-) hkv