During COVID time, there were two things I missed more than anything. One place (and form of music) I don't need to identify yet again...regular readers must pretty much have "had it up to here" with my off-the-scale anglophilia! The other thing I craved was the opportunity to visit a major art museum, almost any major art museum. I just simply wanted to stand and look in person at something beautiful created by an inspired human being.
Now that I am at least temporarily in a big city, I had my opportunity yesterday. A good friend picked me up, and we drove into the stream of highway traffic and emerged out the other side at the museum. This was a museum of modern art, roughly 1950 to the present, and I was left with a jumble of impressions. Most of the work felt quite dated, and there was the inevitable realization that pieces from before the eighties or nineties are quite dated. They reflect concerns and experiments that were cutting edge at the time, but seem passe or even silly right now. Is it because my own artistic impulses never ran to the abstract or conceptual, or because everything in life just seems strange in the wake of COVID? I'm not sure. I was pleased at the percentage of women artists represented in the gallery, and two or three pieces stood out and have stayed with me. All in all, though, it felt like a walk through the distant past. I think I resonate more with artwork of the "real" distant past, and will search that out next time. I am exhausted today. Fifteen months in hermitage mode has made jumping into the stream of modern American life hard. A little goes a long way.
In my last blog, I spoke of how strange and unnerving it is to see (on videos) the changes churches and cathedrals in the UK had to institute to choral evensong, in order to follow COVID guidelines. It occurred to me later what I didn't mention; there is a choreography to the traditional service up in the choir stalls, a linear regularity to the processions and sitting/standing/facing forward for the creed. Choral evensong is a church service, not a concert, so I think what is most disconcerting is seeing it sung in modified concert layout. Still, with everything that has happened, it is quite amazing that music programs have been able to start up again in any form.
I gather that the U.K. has jumped back into the stream with what I assume must be a pretty controversial removal of most pandemic restrictions. Today is literally a new day over there, even though cases of the disease are trending upwards. What this will mean for music and potential travel -- and for all aspects of life there and around the world -- remains to be seen.
