Claude Monet, Making It Look Easy

This is pretty cool.  My favorite part is the dog.



I think I've posted this film, or a shorter version, before.  But it's like dragging my ass to New York to go see the Vermeers at the Frick.  I mean, how many chances do you get for something like that?  You should take advantage when you can.

There are not that many paintings that I'll sit on a chair and really stare at.  I mean, I look closely -- and frequently -- at a lot of paintings.  But the water lily paintings at MoMA are worth sitting down and just letting it happen.  I can't tell you what 'it' is (that's your baggage, man), but it's invariably splendid.

I specifically refer to this one ...

But this is great too ...

I could include dozens more, but that's not the point.  The point is that the ambiguity of what's on the water, what's under the water, and what's in the sky, being reflected by the water is Gandhi-level revolutionary.  It's an act of artistic iconoclasm that rivals anything Picasso did.

Three or four years ago, the Gagosian Gallery did a late Monet show that was really just stunning.  Of course the Gagosian security guards are like the North Korean elite death-squads (very little if not absolutely zero sense of humor), so when I tried to do an impromptu videotape of my impressions of the works I was shown the door.

This will have to do ...