Watson and the Shark

At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, I rounded a corner to see the young Watson threatened by a shark in Havana harbor....how many years before "Jaws?"




Copley painted this in 1778 at the request of the adult Watson who, having lost a leg to the shark, survived and went on to become a prominent English businessman and politician.

So I was surprised at the National Gallery yesterday to round another corner and there was the 14 year old Watson (he was a cabin boy) again threatened by the self-same shark.





Copy right infringement? Painting moved by Amtrak at night between both museums? Something to do with Google?

No, looks like the National has the original (which is accompanied by a carved dedication at the bottom as a warning and for the edification of English youth). Copley made two copies...and one wound up in Boston.
A third is still in England.

All of which should be both a warning and for the edification of museum goers that way before the first xerox machine there were ways of making copies.

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Location:Washington, DC; Boston

God

I was struck by two versions of God. The first was by a Hispano-Flemish artist (from the 15th century when the Low Countries were under the rule of the Spanish kings). I was blown away by the intense details of this set of 12 paintings...off in a side room from the main corridor in the National Gallery. An tiny angel, for example, collecting the blood of Christ in a crucifixion scene.





One large painting was of the assumption of Mary, being lifted from this earthly dross into the starry heavens.



And in heaven there was God waiting...looking like the Pope with a three tiered crown. An old man looking on...making sure the journey goes well...fingers crossed in a blessing to this Queen of Heaven. Halos of divine power emanating from his head.





Later that day, I was at the Museum of American Art, in an old favorite room dedicated to the paintings of A.P. Ryder. Ryder...such a dark, strong, romantic painter of the late 19th, early 20th century...and in his painting of Jonah...so heavily layered with oil that I had not noticed it before...is God looking at the scene.





The same blessing of the fingers...holding the same sacred globe...but now much more part of the scene, the tossing waves, the black sky, the skirting clouds...and below the counterpart, lost in the waves, Jonah...





his counterpart in a sense. Pleading to be saved from the broiling sea. In this scene, God appears less as a ruler, a pope, an emperor, and more as a force, participating in the world, interacting with his human creation.

I was struck by the sweep of time and geography separating these painters yet, both the them in a way, struggling to represent a theological text with oil, brush, and color.

Location:Washington, District of Columbia

National Gallery

When I was a small boy, I was sent down to Washington DC (from home in New Jersey) to visit my Uncle Alan and my cousins. We went camping on the beach...I remember being eaten by mosquitos. But one morning, my uncle dropped me off in DC to do some exploring...he dropped me off in front of the National Gallery.

I walked up that grand staircase that leads to the central rotunda. Arriving at that immense dome with its fountain and statue of Mercury pointing upwards to the sky, I stopped in my tracks. Awestruck at the vast open space. The small naked figure pointing to the infinite. Overwhelmed by the setting.

In some ways that was my first real introduction to the power of art and architecture. Coming back to that space today, I climb up the stairs with a sense of anticipation that something transformative will occur. And it does in smaller ways. Still that first moment of breathless "wow"... it lingers as a reminder of the power of the artist, the architect, to transform our sense of the world...and our place in it.





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Crowds

The metro brings us all together...at least on one or another side of the underground tracks...




Not for those who don't like close contact with folks they don't know....




Amazing how as a species we can figure out the difference between who wants to get on and who wants to get off.





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Location:Washington, District of Columbia, the metro

Diabetes

So this road trip began as a response to our son, Jose, being in the emergency room in Nagua, Dominican Republic and then in Laurel, Maryland for wild-out-of-control diabetes.




Like the smile, but notice the panza (stomach, belly, etc.) while holding sons Dylan and Alejandro back in Nagua.

So Charlotte and I decamped from the Mountain Park campground where we were spending a weekend with friends and flew out to help stabilize his blood sugar.

Ahhh...the things you can learn about glucose. Like how many grams you should be consuming (45 per day for men...or less)? How much sugar is there in those small little Activa yogurt cups (17 grams)? What is the glycemic index for almonds (0....refined sugar is 100...most foods are inbetween)?

And being back on the east coast, well, a lot more heavy people live around here in PG county than in Colorado. So what gives?

Seems government policy of subsidizing corn (hey all those good Republican votes in the mid-west), the manufacture of high fructose corn syrup, and...well, you gotta get people to eat more if you are a food corporation and your primary responsibility is to your stock holders...

Anyway Jose is getting stabilized via insulin shots and diet and exercise...appears to be no permanent damage.

Point is...lots of different reasons for being on the road. And one of them is to help each other stay alive.

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The sea

We drove along the north coast to a little town, Cabrerra, which just had a new "malecon"...walkway by the sea...built. A new restaurant had been built...we did need to wait two hours for food to arrive...but in the meantime, the waves arrived to crash against the rock face of the cliffs facing the sea.




Waves would rush into a small blow hole and blow up spray into the hot, tropical air. Jose and Alejandro would wait for a big wave to roll in and then see how wet they would get. Very, it turns out. Almost like being engulfed in the sea...but still safe on dry land





Meanwhile Dylan was getting fed...even if no one else was.





After Cabrerra, we drove back to Nagua...a short visit with Nelcy's grandmother...too short by Dominican standards...we did not even stay for coffee...but, at least, we got a final "official" picture of our visit. Which, I guess, goes into that roll of official Thanksgiving and wedding photos.





Photos which say "We were there...all of us. We were there...together. We will not always be able to be all together. But we are at this moment."

Then to the plane, to Miami, and home.

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