Art and All That

Today I went up to Haarlem to see a couple of exhibitions. First to Teylers Museum to see an exhibition of paintings by Jacob Maris. He was a nineteenth century Dutch painter who mainly created landscapes. I am not sure why, but they didn’t really appeal to me all that much. They were mainly pretty dark, and I guess I like to have people in paintings rather than just landscapes. I did like the portraits he did, and some of the watercolours.

The second exhibition I went to see was at the Hallen. It was totally different, an exhibition of modern sculptures by Ron Mueck. They are realistic human figures, but they are the wrong size, either too big or too small. There is a huge pregnant woman, and a tiny woman who has just give birth, with her baby lying on her stomach. The statues are lifelike, beautifully made, a bit disconcerting because of the size, but some are very moving. There is a small statue of an old woman lying in her bed. You just see the face, the shape under the blankets, but it is a very moving statuette.

I guess it brings to mind an old lady I visit regularly. I first met her about a year ago, shortly after she’d had some sort of attaque. She is a friend of an aunts’, and I only went to see how she was. There wasn’t much to do for her in hospital over the Christmas holidays, so I went to see her regularly, and continued to do so after she was moved to a nursing home. When I first went to see her she was still in a wheelchair, but now she can walk again. She has her own room in the nursing home, some of her old furniture. This has been a year of change for her, but she has been so wonderful about it. She had to leave behind much of her independence, her own little house, and she has shed a few tears in the process, but she always remained cheerful and hopeful. She sees that she can still go out to the supermarket herself, that she can still go for a walk, and she doesn’t think too much about all the things she can’t do, though she can be impatient about her limitations. She is a wonderful lady, full of stories. She can go on all night about her difficult feet and her special shoes, but she can also tell you about her travels to China, Russia, Indonesia, Romania, South-Africa and other exotic places. And she has a good sense of humour. When she mentions a 90-year old friend, she talks about this ancient person, though she herself is 89. And a girl for her can be anywhere between 6 and 60.

I am still busy clearing out. I’ve done all the most obvious things, so it is getting harder now. This is the stuff I want to find a good home for. So I am sending theatre programmes off to fellow-fans, for example. And I am giving away books to people who want them.