Some may think it odd that art should get that sort of introduction, but it’s true none the less.

After a friendly bite to eat in the Market yesterday a few of us went to the National Art Gallery to take in the Renoir landscape exhibit.

This is one of the paintings on display, obviously not a landscape (there were a few that were not), but it, and one other titled “In The Road” caught my attention.

“The Rowers” because the characters look as if they’re solving the worlds’ problems over a smoke and a bottle of wine, and because the painting was scoffed at by the established artists of the day because the people were cut off at the knees - they refered to it as “Rowers with no knees”; and “In The Road” (which I could not find a picture of) because it was vague enough that it could have been a narrow, mostly over grown, road through the trees pretty well anywhere - and it reminded me of a mostly over grown road behind the house I grew up in, bobcat road we called it… don’t remember why we thought there was a bobcat that lived on, or even near, it, but we were kids, and we did.

I have the very good fortune to have as a friend a very good artist, who has studied art, and was able to explain to me why a bunch of landscapes, the likes of which you could probably find hanging on the walls of any North American hotel lobby, warranted such attention - for indeed, they were quite unremarkable paintings.

It appears that once upon a time all paintings had an identifiable subject, a man standing in the field, a house in the meadow, the maiden by the stream, etc, etc, etc., and a field or a meadow that was just a field or a meadow, with no central subject, was radical, and set the French art world quite on its’ ass.

Hard to imagine, but that’s the way it was back in the day.

– to explain the post title, the paintings were neither sharp, nor clear, and to get a good look at the “picture” itself, as opposed to the painting, it was necessary to stand 30 feet back from it.

I never thought of it (which is why I would not go to such an exhibit without someone who knows what they are talking about) but it’s actually quite amazing that Renoir could sit an arms lengths from his canvas and be able to envision what his work would look like from that far away.

Good food, good friends, good discussion, and a leisurely stroll through an art gallery — what better way to spend an afternoon ‘eh?