We’re sitting in basically an ideal summer day here in Chicago, partially sunny, not too hot, bit of a breeze. It could rain tonight, but when you think about it, it could rain any night.
Nothing special about that.
Yesterday I suggested breaking routine, either majorly or just a little, and I followed through on my end, I hope you did. I spent the afternoon with my Dad at the Art Institute with the luck of overlap for two major exhibitions, “Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris,” and “Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World.”
The Kahlo exhibition focused on her friendship with bookbinder Mary Reynolds, and an array of Reynold’s work was also on display. It was in a small hall in the Modern Wing; we had to line up to enter. But we saw some of her most famous paintings, including The Frame, Self-Portrait with Monkey, and her wedding portrait with Diego Rivera.
There were too many people in such a small space for me, though, even on a Wednesday afternoon, so I wasn’t able to linger.
The Caillebotte was in a huge hall, tons of space, pieces well-placed and I had to laugh at the text at the start of the exhibit, describing him as a wealthy man who didn’t have to work who had no pressure to sell his paintings. The inequity, even now, long after both artists left the earth.
However.
His paintings, up close, stole my breath, they are astonishingly beautiful. It was like time-traveling to Paris in the late 1800s. He was not mediocre.
You may be most familiar with Paris Street; Rainy Day, a work in the Art Institute’s permanent collection, but the way he painted people and moments, and saw them, really saw them, was extraordinary.
Well, you get the idea. It was an incredible experience.
But also a bit of a tough one. It’s the first time I’ve gone back to the Art Institute since my mom died, and I could sense her, ahead in the next gallery, certain to be there when I turned a corner, pointing out a detail in a painting in the kind of hushed voice reserved for such places.
Truth be told, we’ve been putting off the visit for months, but this is the final week of the Kahlo, and the beginning of the Caillebotte, and I couldn’t bear missing either or both. So many exhibitions have come and gone.
But it was OK, I was OK, the art is there, the art is enduring, the art itself is evidence that some things endure, even when life is gone.
And life goes.
That’s a plain fact of existence.
But I did my something different, which was, at its heart, something very very much the same, but forever changed.
Have a great Thursday.
A Bit to Read 
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