Pictorial Art / Painting

In my twenties a young woman I was interested in told me that a male friend had taken her to the Metropolitan Art Museum on Fifth ave., NYC. I like to remember this fact to remind me what a rube from the Outback I was even in my twenties, en route to college, late. Take a girl to a museum? remember, way back in the 60s (?) the first new wave strident Feminist was an Australian woman, later a Professor of Philosophy at Oxford or Cambridge. In her history making book, she wrote (for drama IMO) "In Australia women go barefoot and walk three paces behind." She was ambitious. (<g>).

From then on, for life, I visited Museums, Which are an excellent, excellent place to meet women, and not just the Met, but literally all over the world; Most excitingly when I was crew on an American merchant ship berthed in Genoa, Italy, when I made a beeline for the train station and a ride to the Uffizi in Florence (Firenzi) a distance of 150 miles. I was about 24, and still in college, returned from two years in the US Army in Korea. I'd taken two art history courses in college, one on 17th century Dutch painting, and one on the Rennaisance. I enjoyed the former the most, by far.

What I find most moving in art (painting) is humanity depicted with humility and love: Rembrandt, Vemeer, Hals, Van Gogh (thought of as French, but he paid homage to Rembrandt, even in his use of the brush, finger nail and brush wrong end!)

None of this would be permanently important to me if I couldn't find merit in present day painting using precepts I learned from studying painting from medieval times to the present. On my wall is a large reproduction of a present day painting signed by David Poole. (I'd Google him but my computer might lose what I've already written here, and when that happens it's utterly sickening, as I hope you have never experienced.) I'm sure my ignorance is showing but I've never heard of David Poole. He's a great artist. I had to live with his painting, which I bought for less than $10 at Goodwill, in reproduction, and very nicely framed, for quite a while before I grasped all its virtues.  

I lack the hardware at the moment to post it here. I ask you to 'see' the painting through my description. It is a beach scene at the height of summer: a deep blue sky, brilliant light, several (3) bicycles on the sand leaning against a high wall. Over the wall, mostly hidden from us are about ten beach umbrellas. In two places in the line of umbrellas we can see the deep blue ocean. There is not a cloud. We are peeking at a scene we can not see very much of. It is as if we are backstage.

How, one might think, can theatricality be sneaked into this ordinary scene? Easy! Add a female figure, lithe, nearly nude, carrying another, red umbrella higher than all the other multicolored umbrellas as she runs, or dances, standing tall on one foot, along the very high wall, the one that cuts off our vision. She is utterly self-assured, balancing perfectly. This is about the power one feels from joy, pure unalloyed innocent joy. David Poole I love you whoever, and wherever you are.

Barry