October 2016
Barbara Crooker
bcrooker@ix.netcom.com
bcrooker@ix.netcom.com
This was an invitational project, where we were to construct our own still life, and then write about it. I wasn’t coming up with anything, then I noticed how no one, and I mean no one, was actually looking at the paintings in this museum. All they were doing was taking pictures with their phones. And whenever there was a bench to sit on, they settled, like a flock of pigeons, and started posting them to Facebook. So I just hung out for a few minutes until the still life composed itself, and voila. www.barbaracrooker.com
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Bal du Moulin de la Galette
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Musèe d'Orsay, Paris
Jostled and elbowed at the Musée d'Orsay by people clicking,
first at each painting, then at its attribution, I start to realize
no one's looking at the canvases, just their screens. And so
my nature morte composes itself, as I wait
by the leather banquettes for a few still minutes, until
a flock of cell phone users settles like pigeons
on a park bench, more interested in checking messages
and posting on Facebook than watching Renoir's dancers
whirling and dipping, light and shade stippling
their stiff dresses, their serge suits, their rosy skin.
Here in Montmartre, on a Sunday afternoon, the hall
is bathed in sun filtering through the trees, dappling
the woman in the blue-and-white striped dress, the men
with their straw boaters. Even the glasses on the table
ring with song.
But on this Sunday, in the museum, none of this registers.
Hunched over, waiting for the ping of incoming, faces
laved in pixelated light, drawn to the world of two
dimensions, thumbs are the only thing moving. A faint
hint of batter sizzling in butter enters the room, along
with distant phrases of accordion music. You can almost
hear the turtledoves twitter and tweet in the far-off trees. . . .
-published in Still Life with Poem (Literary House Press)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Musèe d'Orsay, Paris
Jostled and elbowed at the Musée d'Orsay by people clicking,
first at each painting, then at its attribution, I start to realize
no one's looking at the canvases, just their screens. And so
my nature morte composes itself, as I wait
by the leather banquettes for a few still minutes, until
a flock of cell phone users settles like pigeons
on a park bench, more interested in checking messages
and posting on Facebook than watching Renoir's dancers
whirling and dipping, light and shade stippling
their stiff dresses, their serge suits, their rosy skin.
Here in Montmartre, on a Sunday afternoon, the hall
is bathed in sun filtering through the trees, dappling
the woman in the blue-and-white striped dress, the men
with their straw boaters. Even the glasses on the table
ring with song.
But on this Sunday, in the museum, none of this registers.
Hunched over, waiting for the ping of incoming, faces
laved in pixelated light, drawn to the world of two
dimensions, thumbs are the only thing moving. A faint
hint of batter sizzling in butter enters the room, along
with distant phrases of accordion music. You can almost
hear the turtledoves twitter and tweet in the far-off trees. . . .
-published in Still Life with Poem (Literary House Press)
©2016 Barbara Crooker
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