Quantum Critique

Quantum Critique

  by Donna K. Fitch

  Copyright 2011 Donna K. Fitch

  "They're angry this week, Fred. Do you think anyone will look at them?"

  The security guard grunted and scratched at something on his belt buckle, rattling the keys dangling nearby. "I dunno, it's a football weekend," he answered. "'S where I oughta be."

  I folded my arms and cocked my head for a better view of the painting, although I knew it by heart. "Art feeds the soul," I reminded him. I meant it literally, but Fred doesn't pay much attention half the time. "Football feeds ... well, I'm not sure what it feeds."

  "My wife, I hope," he said with a snort. "I got money on that game. Alabama by a touchdown. How come you don't ever play the pool?"

  He shouldn't say things like that in front of the artworks, especially when they're angry, but he always does. "I just don't see the point," I told him, staring at the little patch of carmine splashing the chest of the hapless clerk in the foreground of the painting. The color was definitely brighter than it was a week ago, which was when the new brochure went out with "Convenience Store Holdup Gone Wrong" featured on the cover. Even works by minor local artists who specialized in depicting urban crime need attention, and it did have a definite primitive charm, although the suggestion of violence reminded me far too much of past times I'd rather not remember.

  "We'll be busy," Fred assured me. "All the football widows'll come in for the new exhibit. People with out-of-town guests. Although I don't know why you want more people in here. All that noise ... All them kids ..." He shuddered audibly.

  I just sighed and shook my head. He wouldn't ever understand, so I don't even try any more. Ignoring his unsolicited commentary, I said, "Ms. Connor told us about this exhibit in the staff meeting. Modern works, on loan from Memphis. Quite exciting."

  Some days Fred sounds like a pig with his snorting. "Modern. To me, modern is the impressionists. I don't like anything since." He screwed up his face as if eating a lemon. "Except maybe Calder. Something about the mobiles and stabiles ... The juxtaposition of metal against the sky, clean sharp edges contrasting with freeform natural shapes ..."

  "If you're so knowledgeable about art," I interrupted, frankly surprised by his words, "why are you the security guard and I'm the docent?"

  "Because you're a bored housewife who volunteered and has to lecture to disinterested high school kids." Fred grinned like some sort of mental defective. "I just have to guard the things and warn people not to touch and use my education amusing myself without interference from anyone."

  I almost snorted at that, but caught myself in time. "Education?" I echoed, aware of the nasty tone of my voice and hoping the painting would forgive me this once. "Dropping out of eighth grade isn't an education."

  "For your information, Mrs. Theriot," he said, his calm smile unshaken, "I have a bachelor's degree in art history, same as you. And I write a review column for the Alabama Arts Today website."

  My withering glare told him I was unimpressed.

  "So how come you aren't looking at the new exhibit before everyone gets here?" Fred asked, oblivious to my expression.

  "I'm not ready yet. The paintings really prefer a larger audience. It's too much pressure for one person." His concerned frown, as if I'd said something wrong, annoyed me. "If you'll excuse me, I have duties before we open," I finished, and hurried from the gallery.

  Fred was right about the crowds, although it irked me to admit it. When the doors opened, people streamed inside, eager for the new exhibit. All the works would be fresh to me as well, as I'd been forced to miss the preview party; my oldest, Mindy, had claimed a cold, although I think she probably had a test the next day, so I had to stay home with her, and Douglas worked late, even though I told him about the party well in advance. My family doesn't understand the importance of my work at the museum.

  I barely heard the murmurs of the crowd over the pounding in my ears as I stepped across the threshold into the gallery where the exhibit hung. The familiar wave of something like static electricity on a dry day shimmered over me, nearly taking away my breath, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. An indescribable combination of quiet calm and jubilant power surged through my veins, the sort of feeling Pope Julius II must have experienced when he first saw the Sistine Chapel ceiling, seeing its beauty and knowing that although Michelangelo had painted it, he had commissioned it, he had caused it to be. The enjoyment of the patrons was palpable as they pointed and whispered and gestured at each painting and print and sculpture.

  My habit is to glance at each work first before settling down to really give each its due. Fred would be happy, I thought as I toured the room. The pieces were, on the whole, not quite as groundbreaking as I'd hoped, despite the bold title of the exhibition, "The Future of Art: A Retrospective." I quelled any stirrings of doubt, not wishing to offend the works. Standing out among the more ordinary canvases were a huge Frank Stella dominating one end of the room, a Rauschenberg assemblage near it, and an immense aquatint by Helen Frankenthaler. I'd nearly completed the initial circuit, turned my head away to cross the doorway, and looked back in astonishment as I realized I'd missed one small painting in the corner.

  I actually gasped aloud. The entire canvas was about the size of a sheet of notebook paper, stark, pristine white, and framed with a thin white shadowbox. Precisely in the center of the canvas was a square of perfectly painted red, smooth and flat, as if it were a lithograph. Somehow I knew that if I measured the shape, each side would be exactly the same length. The simple perfection of it was such that I flinched away, lowering my eyes as if before a mighty king on a throne. The tag below proclaimed its title "As You Like It," executed in oils on canvas just last year by none other than Anastasias DeGraffenried.

  I stared at the tag, my ears ringing. I should have known that such a faultless masterpiece was created by the high school art teacher who helped me survive the hollow nightmare of my teenage years and who opened up another realm of experience to me, creative and art-filled, but entirely and intimately personal. Why had Ms. Connor hung it here, in the corner, away from the main traffic? I'd have to speak to her about this.

  I eased away from the beautiful red square, tore my gaze from it, and for a few moments watched the people gliding about the gallery. My palms itched and sweated as I waited breathlessly for others to discover its simplicity. After a few moments, I exhaled slowly as I noted the patrons passing the red work, stopping, viewing the painting. Relief weakened my knees. If something that amazing were ignored, the foundations of the world might just crack with the strain.

  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were busy with two classes of school children each day. I incorporated the DeGraffenried painting into the lecture, although it wasn't originally in the notes Ms. Connor gave me. The children were politely bored, until the second class on Wednesday, a lively group of sixth graders, rushed in.

  Just as I launched into the concept of nonrepresentational art and gestured toward "As You Like It," one spiky-haired young man asked contemptuously, "Why's that so special? I could paint something that lame and stupid, and nobody'd put it in a museum."

  Ice instantly coated my body, although beads of clammy sweat sprang up on my scalp. The laughter of the class sounded dim and distant. Lame? The DeGraffenried stupid? How could he say that?

  I jerked my head toward the painting, afraid I'd see a gaping hole, but the bright red beamed back at me as if to say that the uninformed opinions of children hardly count. Feeling returned to my fingertips and toes, relief bubbling through my veins. The words of the lecture flowed from my lips once more.

  "Mr. DeGraffenried is dealing here with ideal fo
rms," I said. "Not all artwork depicts the world as it really is. Some artists focus our attention on the materials themselves and on the creative process. At the beginning of the last century, artists such as Kupka and Kandinsky experimented with the forms of the visible world ..."

  They tuned me out, of course, and I quickly moved on to the sculpture garden. After the little hoodlums shuffled back onto the bus to bedevil their long-suffering teachers, I hurried back to the painting, my one-inch pumps skidding on the polished floor, leaving thick black marks. The white canvas, the red square remained whole and perfect, perhaps even a bit brighter and smoother after three days of devotion.

  I vividly recalled Anastasias DeGraffenried's perpetually-disordered thatch of blonde hair, his hazel eyes