Greetings from Planet45

It’s easy to think people don’t really care about art. This opinion though is promptly falsified by a Saturday visit to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. The Englishman and I spent a little time there this past Saturday along with one or two million of our closest friends. What a hub-bub! No time to take things in and reflect- just a quick tour of the Painting/Sculpture floors sufficient to acquaint ourselves with the general contents of the place.

The Warhols were glamorous, the Impressionists of course all shimmered, and pulled people in as though tractor beams were in use. I saw one Klimt, painted in gold and platinum, so beautiful and intimate it was almost a little shocking to see on the wall. Matisse – so vibrant and pleasing. Dali- surprising small canvases!

There in the cacophony hung canvases that created a cone of silence around them. Silent in part because few people stopped, but those that did tried to reflect on the pieces in front of them: Rothko. Huge canvases, blocks of color, evocative, simple and majestic. For the most part they cry out to be by themselves, away from the messages of other paintings, but there was one pairing I liked- a Rothko next to a jagged Still- the one, contemplative, the other, a single shriek of jagged color on a dark background.

As I look through my little book of Rothkos and his life story, I am reminded of how he died, incisions cut deeply into his arms, and think of the solid lines of his paintings, and wonder.

The Englishman is now working in Manhattan and has a small apartment across the Hudson in NJ. The apartment is no great shakes, but out its picture window is what is known as a million dollar view of Gotham.

Sunrise over this skyline is dramatic and intricate. As the minutes tick by and the light changes, the features and personality of the landscape change too. A moment passes and suddenly it appears as though all the lights were turned off in the skyscrapers. They shift from glowing lanterns to darkened buildings in an instant.

The constancy of the skyline during the day belies the extraordinary level of human activity in the city. From across the river it’s easy to think of the skyline as a kind of hi-tech Stonehenge, totems standing in silence. But Manhattan is a hive, one of the busiest places in the world, and a testimony to the fact that humans actually can live together in large numbers and for the most part, get along.

On my next visit to Gotham I will bring a camera and try to capture changes at dawn.

The slightly askew picture above was taken from a ferry and shows the cranes at Ground Zero. Coming from out of town, with my first real experiences of this city, September 11 is frequently on my mind. And as sad and horrifying and gut-wrenching as the events of that day were, my lingering impression, as I walk my dog in the morning, watching the skyline, is of endurance of the city. It is massive, it hurtles along into the future, undeterred, and to the naive eye across the river, hardly touched by the incendiary efforts of a few misguided souls.