A PLACE TO STOP, THINK, AND WONDER

Do you enjoy visiting a museum? I don't get to do this often, so it becomes a special treat.  On a blustery day in Princeton, NJ where we are staying I walked to the Princeton University Art Museum. I had seen a painting there I wanted to look at longer.  Perhaps you know about the phenomenon called Slow Art.  It doesn't take more time, just slower looking at fewer pieces.  That's what I wanted. 

One thing I have noticed, we never worry in a museum.  We stop, think and wonder.  Negative feelings fall away.  Art is good for the mind.  Wherever we choose to linger--landscapes, medieval iconography, portraits, abstracts--brings its own reverie.  I wanted to spend more time looking at this marvelous self-portrait by Gabriele Munter.

Isn't it arresting? She sits at easel holding her paints in her right hand, yet hardly dressed for painting in her cream-colored garment, delicately balanced hat, and pendant necklace. What was she really wearing while she painted herself I wondered.  Munter was an influential German expressionist painter, born in 1877 and died in 1962.  But like other women artists, she was for a time overlooked. 

The museum has three of her paintings on view.  In this one her lover and fellow artist Wassily Kandinsky is at table with Erma Bossi, another artist.  Not as handsome as the self-portrait, but with good dark outlines and a flatness that makes for a strong composition.

In this painting the colors are even bolder.  Of course I looked Gabriele Munter up when I got home.  Her life is very interesting.   There are beautiful slide shows of her work on YouTube, a few accompanied by music such as a Bach-double violin concerto.  I wish I could reproduce it here. 

On the same visit I spent some time studying another interesting portrait of a woman.  American artist Robert Henri made this painting of Mildred Clarke von Kienbusch in 1914. 

The background and the clothing (except for the ruffle) are very dark, so different from the pale colors of Munger's self-portrait.  But the eyes and the lips are bright.  And of course the splash of color in the flowers she is holding.  Do you wonder if Henri sees his model as luminous but Munger, who paints her own face partially shadowed, does not see herself that way?   That wouldn't be surprising.  We might expect Munger to see herself more as an artist than as a striking woman.  

I was also drawn to this painting called Boy Reading (1955).

The setting seems cluttered yet peaceful, doesn't it? And rather affluent.  There is no chaos. Nice, the idea of a boy being able to read a book in such a place, with nothing unpleasant to interfere.  I looked this artist up too. Fairfield Porter--his work is characterized by interior settings, golden light and intimate glimpses of family.  Certainly this description fits this painting. 

Often on any one visit to a museum we try to see too much.  Then nothing sinks in.  This time the works I looked at slowly seemed to offer so much more.  In what other ways might slow looking work well for us?  In the outdoors certainly. On a walk. In a conversation. Maybe even just thinking, slowing down our thoughts. 

I hope to enjoy the luxury of slow looking at a wonderful museum again sometime soon.