Matisse: Painter As Sculptor

On Sunday the whole family headed down to Baltimore to see the Matisse: Painter As Sculptor exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Despite living in the Hbg for 2 1/2 years, we had never been down to Baltimore; for some reason I had it in my head that it was as far away as Philly, when in fact it's just over an hour away, a straight shot down 83. This turned out to be a fantastic day out, and I also gained some insight into how the three and a half-year-old mind (or at least the mind of my three and a half-year-old) works.

We got there right as the museum opened. We had originally decided to get lunch at the restaurant in the museum after the show, so as to avoid having to go outside in the bitter (for the Eastern Seaboard) cold. Upon arrival we learned that, without reservations, there's no way to get into Gertrude's for Sunday brunch. This put a significant crimp in our plans, but after a bit of minor pleading, the very nice hostess agreed to squeeze us in right then. I imagine it wasn't easy to decide to seat a brunch-crashing family with a small, hyper child and an infant, but they did and we were grateful. Kudos to the fine folks at Gertrude's. After a very nice meal (crabcakes, natch, and a mimosa) we bought our tickets and headed into the museum, but not before picking up a FunPack. The BMA does lots of things to make itself family-friendly, and this is one of the best: free activity packs for the kids. We opted for the sketch pack, and will be getting the costume pack next time we go.

So on to the exhibit -- it was fantastic. It's a shame that it's closing in a few weeks, and apparently not being shown anywhere else; if you were lucky enough to see it in Baltimore, San Francisco, or Dallas then you saw one of the best art exhibits in a while. It was, of course, focused on Matisse's sculpture, which was my first revelation. I didn't even know he was a sculptor, and it turns out he spent a large portion of his career sculpting. This exhibit brought together dozens of his sculptures and paired them with some of his paintings and other works to show how his sculpture fit in the context of his entire career.

Zosia and Genevieve were both troopers; Genevieve was either asleep or quietly looking around, while Zosia really seemed to get into the art. About halfway through the exhibit, we walked into a gallery that had, among other things, Alberto Giacometti's 'Woman Walking' sculpture. As we were looking at it, she told me that

she didn't like the sculpture, that it made her afraid. I asked her what she didn't like about the sculpture and she said she didn't like the face, especially the ears. Not surprisingly (since she hasn't had a lot of interaction with headless torsos) she didn't initially grasp that the sculpture was of a headless torso, and thought the breasts were eyes and the shoulders were the ears.

We talked about it for a while and I told her that it actually was a body without a head or arms, that was OK because it was just a sculpture and not a real person, etc. She thought about it for a while and said that she understood it didn't have a head, and that was OK, but she still didn't like it.

Eventually we moved away from the Giacometti and went to look at Matisse's 'The Yellow Dress,' which was in the same gallery. She said she really liked this painting, and we talked about it for a while, but the whole time she kept looking over her shoulder at the Giacometti. Expecting her to say no I asked if she wanted to

go look at it again and to my surprise she said yes. So we went back over to it and she looked at it silently for a good 5 seconds. I could see she was getting upset and maybe even a little teary-eyed so I broke her away from it and we continued on with the exhibit.

I was surprised so see her have such a strong reaction (both positive and negative) to any art, to be able to give voice to her dislike, and also to want to actually go back over and look at it some more -- to process it more, I guess? We talked for a little bit about how one of the purposes of art was to make you feel, and that the sculpture and the Matisse painting were perfect examples of that. A friend suggested that she might have been subconsciously reacting to the strange proportions of the Giacometti, which were certainly in contrast to the nice, orderly Matisse painting (which included bright colors and a beautiful hat and dress, both things she loves), and that's certainly possible. Whatever it was, it was a fascinating experience for all of us.

She mentioned the Giacometti a few more times over the afternoon ("the sculpture with no head what I don't like") but didn't seem to dwell on it. Interestingly, a few galleries later there was another Giacometti, one of his typical super tall-and-thin sculptures. Unbidden, Zo told us she didn't like that one either. Apparently she hates Giacometti -- who knew?

I didn't go into go into too much depth about what was actually in the exhibit, because I'm afraid the Matisse family might come and beat me up. Apparently, when Daryl was in the gift shop, she overhead a museum employee tell a visitor that the reason they couldn't find a print of a specific work was that the Matisse family was extremely stingy with what it allowed to be reproduced. This also explains why, when we were in the activity room, a guard came in and asked me if I was using a flash on my camera (I wasn't) and reminded me that no photography was allowed in the exhibit (never mind that we had already been all the way through the exhibit), and also why there were so many disappointed art students with sketch pads wandering around, unable to even sketch anything in the exhibit. Seems a bit ridiculous, but then again I'm not the trustee of a collection of incredibly important art.