Talking About Art

Harkening back to my college days as an art major, today I spent the better part of today at the Nasher Art Museum. Ruth Caccavale, who is a docent at the Nasher, had invited friends to come for lunch and a tour of the museums show of Carlo Dolci’s works. It was a most glorious way to spend an afternoon.

When Ruth invited people you just picked the time that fit best in you schedule. It was luck that some people I like, but don’t get to see often we in today’s group so we had such a nice lunch at the Nasher Cafe.

I had mistakenly paid for the maximum amount of time in the parking lot, but it turned out to be a good thing because I ended up being at the museum for almost four hours. We had a little time between lunch and the tour so I went through the exhibit of the 60’s to 80’s works. I was pleasantly surprised to see a work of my cousin Maude Gatewood on display. It was a good warm up before going into the Dolci exhibit.

What? You have never heard of Dolci? That is how Ruth started her tour. Carlo Dolci was a 17th century Florentine painter who was supported by the Medici’s. He was a devout religious painter and thus many of his works have biblical subjects. But he was also considerable conservative so not even baby Jesus is ever really naked.

Ruth brought the whole exhibit to life and I highly recommend you go see this show which is closing in January when all the works of art from the major collections from the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Getty and other collections will be returned to their home museums. On December 9, at 11:00 Ruth will be doing what is called a slow art talk about one painting, Poetry, which I wish I was going to be in town to go to for it is a beautiful work and she is an excellent docent.

To me there is nothing more enlightening than spending an afternoon talking about art. It is so much more pleasurable to hear about the issues of the 17th century than deal with those of today. Thanks Ruth!