My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [53]
Did artists revolting against church tradition bring on the Renaissance? Or did the Renaissance happen and that inspired all the new art? Seems like something I should find out for myself. You know what? Suddenly art history doesn’t seem like such a bullshit major, and I feel like there are a whole lot of former college classmates to whom I owe an apology.
Still, I could look at the older works all day long. I’m fascinated by how vibrant the colors still are. What kind of paint did they use that they’re still so bright five to seven hundred years after the fact? Is there some kind of preservative brushed on them? I want to know the mechanics behind the art. And I wonder how these artists would feel if they knew their work would continue to live on so many centuries later.
Seeing these paintings makes me want to discover more about how they came to be. I want to read the backstories about the artists and their inspirations and their lives.
I guess today’s lesson is that although pictures are interesting, I’m always going to be more captivated by words.
“Do you feel extra-cultured now?” Fletch removes his work shoes and promptly fills them with cedar shoe trees.
“Yes and no. On the one hand, I was excited to take it all in, but on the other . . . I couldn’t stop being me while I was there.” Maisy and Loki then enter the room, both with big yay-my-people-are-all-home grins on their doggie faces. Loki curls up at the foot of the bed and Maisy wedges herself in next to me. I hug her, inadvertently taking a whiff. Good thing she’s charming because that dog has a stink no bath can conquer.
“Meaning?” He then neatly folds his pants before depositing them into the dry-cleaning bag.
“Meaning I couldn’t turn off the hyperparanoid, danger-danger-danger part of my brain. I kept thinking about that short-lived show Traveler, where the bad guy blew up the museum and I was all ‘Today will really suck if I get exploded.’ I kept looking for hipsters with video cameras and backpacks and roller skates. Then I really started to assess the security situation, and it turns out the whole place is staffed with guards who are either old enough to have modeled for the artists featured in the Impressionist wing or as fat as me. Plus, they carry walkie-talkies, not weapons. Maybe they have a nightstick or something, but that’s only going to work if they can keep pace with whomever they’re trying to clobber.”
I stretch and reposition myself on the bed before continuing. “So then I started examining each doorway to see if they had those metal bars that would clamp down when the alarm goes off like in The Thomas Crown Affair, and they had nothing! All I saw were unobscured doorways! I’m telling you that place is wide-open for any wannabe art thief to come in and steal a priceless Degas because neither the Oldies nor Fatties are going to have the wherewithal to chase ’em down. You don’t need to be Thomas Crown to steal fine art; you just need a razor blade and some sneakers.”
Fletch pokes his head out of his closet. “Tell me that I’m not going to get a call at work that you tried to run off with a Renoir.”
“Oh, please, that’s not a problem. I’m not fast enough.”
Yet.
“How’s your face?”
“Better, thanks! Everything’s shrunk back to an appropriate size and kind of smoothed out, and I can’t see my top lip when I look down anymore. Plus, all the bruises are gone and I can eat hot food again. Just in time, too, because I’ve got to fly out to my meeting tomorrow.”
I’m sitting on the kitchen counter talking to Angie. Normally I don’t like to put my butt where my food goes, but the cord on this phone’s really short, and there’s