It’s one thing for me to take a photo and then remark on how much it reminds me of a certain work of art. It’s another to come across a news service photo of an entire group of people in another country who have somehow managed, in their innocence, to re-create the scene in yet another famous work of art. The similarity of this group of German sunbathers to the people depicted in Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884” also reinforces my point about current reality being definitively Post-Impressionist. Not that I was thinking Pointillism exactly, but, sure, that works. We are out of the garden, but the colors are still there.
If the universe is truly—as the Hindus tell us—a dream issuing as a giant bubble from the mind of the sleeping Vishnu, lounging there on his cosmic ocean, perhaps we are currently living in the Art 101 bubble. Maybe from your wave, it looks Pointillist; from mine, it looks Cubist; and from someone else’s, it looks Surreal, but in any case—it’s all art, so don’t sweat it. We’re all living in a giant museum, and while you may be able to do little more than shuffle from one room to another, there’s always another masterpiece right around the corner. Think what you have to look forward to!
Now, I have heard of planned events in which people deliberately set out to re-create a famous work of art with living and breathing participants. That’s been done with Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” in the Netherlands, and in Laguna Beach, California, they have an annual festival of “Living Pictures” in which masterworks are brought to life in a Pageant of the Masters. (By coincidence, and I swear I didn’t know this until two minutes ago, this year’s festival begins today and runs through August 31st. No fooling—here’s the link.)
Now if you don’t happen to live in a trendy place like the left or right coast of the United States, or Amsterdam, you can still get your share of arts and recreation. For example, I happen to know that just north of here, in Columbus, Ohio, there is a park in which “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” has been reproduced using plants—so, no human actors, but the resemblance is still remarkable, as I can tell you myself, having seen it with my own eyes on a long-ago trip. Should your plans take you in that direction, check it out! I have photos that I took myself on my own Sunday morning visit, and while some of the hedges may have needed a bit of trimming, the overall effect was quite impressive.
Wordplay would like to be able to take credit for being prescient in all of this, but all we can truly say is that, given a surf board, we will ride a wave on Vishnu’s ocean as long as the next person. Longer, even.
