Opening My Eyes

“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.”

John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Books (New York, 1972).

Nice outing on Saturday to see the Tom Wesselmann display “Beyond Pop Art” at the Denver Art Museum. It was my second gander at it, this one with my friend Deanna and the former one with my friend Diana. Although their names are almost the same, their interests and insights are extremely different. The contrast reminded me of John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing , a book I read many years ago when learning how to see objects and their surroundings in drawing. Berger asserted, “Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way” (p. 16). That is even true in the time between my two trips to the museum. The context in which I viewed it changed.

Two weeks ago while seeing the show with Dianne, I found my attention going to the large picture of what was there to be seen. Dianne had received her art education by living in Paris with artists and eventually working in a gallery there hanging art shows. While her education was not formal, it was intense, and she has a remarkable eye and memory. The immersion method prepared her to make design and historic connections with other artists—especially impressionists and pop artists. She opened my eyes to perspectives I’d surely have missed had I viewed the show alone. Having been a clothing model, she also was very interested in Wesselmann’s treatment of the female form. We talked a lot about all these ideas and insights.

Yesterday with Deanna, I took quite a different look at the retrospective, one related to her interests. Her technical questions informed by studio training pushed me to look at how the artist attached his canvasses to his frames, how he approached gluing on his collage (for instance, did he first paint and then glue? she asked), and the relationship between his drawn and constructed studies with the eventual finished artworks. Reviewing the display from these differing points of view opened my eyes and left me with a flood of new images and ideas, and a deeper appreciation at what the artist had accomplished.

But don’t take my word for it. Get to the display before it closes September 14. See it for yourself.

Today I thank John Berger, Dianne, and Deanna for my continuing perception of the world of art and the world as art and art subject. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Thanks to DAM, too.

Denver, 2014