When I go to an art museum, I don't want to look at fussy portraits of old-fashioned people, or one puffy cloud-filled landscape after another.
Do not - repeat, do not - show me exquisite hand-painted antique china or classic marble busts.
Masterful though it may be, I am just not that interested in traditional, understated, conventional art.
Because when I walk into a gallery, I want to take one look around me and feel my eyeballs pop.
I wish to feel energy pulsing around the room like a wild electrical storm.
I dream of lines, shapes, and colors so bold they make me gasp.
I hope for majestic works of art that knock my socks off and make me feel like I've been waiting all my life just to see this painting, and it has been waiting all its life just for me.
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| Wolfeboro III by Frank Stella |
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| White Curve V by Ellsworth Kelly |
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| The Yellow X by Al Held |
^ Boom! Bang! Pow!
These three massive paintings at the Seattle Art Museum totally delivered for me on all counts.
^ Even these smaller pieces, part of the same series as the giant yellow X, set my heart to pounding. Vibrant, bold, and seemingly cropped images of a much greater reality, they fascinated me as I wandered among them, catching glimpses of their great granddaddy hanging just around the corner.
^ And while I loved every inch of these oversize explosions of color, I have to say that this view from the upper balcony was pretty extraordinary.
When my eyeballs collide with the broad side of this work, with its electric colors and dynamic diagonals, I feel like I've been visually T-boned. In the best way possible.
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For more stories about my encounters with masterful art, read:
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