I have been in a tear to feel like I am a tourist in my own city. Strange concept right? True. We often do not take advantage of the things we have right here right now, and wait until we are in strange far away lands to venture to museums, happenings, and the such. Well, today things change for you. I am giving you permission, actually, I am challenging you to behave like a tourist and explore where you are. Right here, right now.
I have been attending the "gallery talks" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. These are short tours, 1 hour at the most focusing on one subject matter, sometimes even just on one work. They are led by volunteer docents that have a love and passion for the arts, and make the tour fun, accessible, and educational. I learned something terribly naughty and reminded me that sometimes there is such drama surrounding the arts, that the history behind certain works is just worthy of it's own Jerry Springer show. Here is the story of Maurice Utrillo.
His mother Suzanne Valadon (changed her name from Marie-Clementine) became an artists model after a fall from a circus trapeze ended her career as an acrobat. She figuratively and literaly took of her clothes for infamous personalities like Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and later Edgar Degas who became her mentor.Out of these affairs came Maurice, and the following anecdotal story. Included is her self-portrait on display at MFAH.
"After Maurice was born to Suzanne Valadon, she went to Renoir, for whom she had modeled nine months previously. Renoir looked at the baby and said, 'He can't be mine, the color is terrible!' Next she went to Degas, for whom she had also modeled. He said, 'He can't be mine, the form is terrible!' At a cafe, Valadon saw an artist she knew named Miguel Utrillo, to whom she spilled her woes. The man told her to call the baby Utrillo: 'I would be glad to put my name to the work of either Renoir or Degas." ('Parting With the Family van Gogh' in the New York Times, April 22, 2006)
The painting below is by Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) circa 1914, oil on canvas and on display at MFAH. To add to twists, the central house pictured here in the middle of the street (rue Mont-Cenis) belonged to Mimi Pinson, an eccentric woman appearing in many literary and musical works, who happened to be the model for Puccini's La Boheme.
A little drama is always good in terms of art. In this case, it heightened my enjoyment of seemingly beautiful yet somewhat boring and unremarkable works. Reminds me of Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" where he hypothesizes that due to the three A's, Asia, Automation, and Abundance (remedial jobs can be outsourced, technology makes repetitive tasks easy, and we have more "things" than ever in history), we are drawn to seek a deeper meaning. In that search, we play. In play, we tell stories. The same can be applied to people. Often we dismiss based on physical assumptions. Rich stories, histories (whether dramatic or not) and experiences can provide us so many more life lessons.
