For Shame

Growing up in a Maryland suburb a few minutes from downtown Washington, DC, I spent a lot of time at the National Gallery of Art. I always preferred the open, airy modern art wing to the older, traditional wing, although, at nine, I couldn't have explained why. I felt that the canvas of Abstract Expressionist paintings crackled with energy, though, and it's easy to see why I was attracted to the reverberating intensity of work by Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, Mark Rothko, and, later, Lee Krasner. Stuart Davis and Alexander Calder also explored bursts of color and kinetic movement that seemed entirely drained out of the cold marble distance of classical sculptures and paintings by comparison.

My newfound interest in art created prior to the last century is of a very recent vintage. Recent visits to the Barnes Collection outside Philadelphia, as well as museums in Belgium and the Netherlands, have broadened my understanding and appreciation for older art in an almost unbelievably expansive way.

Last month at the Getty in Los Angeles, I went absolutely mad over a small painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard called "The Fountain of Love" (1785). And I was so embarassed momentarily, like I should reject it because it lacked the shiny depth of Pop Art or a Jeff Koons sculpture. But I won't. It doesn't. I love it.