mystique, bad wine and rubbery cheese and people dressed in black. Black jeans, black T-shirts, black chinos, black turtlenecks and sweatshirts, and the occasional black sport jacket. Here and there a black beret.
Not everyone was wearing black. Keller had shown up in a suit and tie, and he wasn’t the only one. There was a variety of other attire, including a few women in dresses and a young man in white overalls spattered with paint. But there was, on balance, a great deal of black, and it was the men and women in black who looked most at home here.
Maybe there was a good reason for it. Maybe you wore black to an art gallery for the same reason you turned off your pager at a concert, so as to avoid distracting others from what had brought them there. That made a kind of sense, but Keller had the feeling there was more to it than that. He somehow knew that these people wore black all the time, even when they gathered in dimly lit coffeehouses with nothing on the walls but exposed brick. It was a statement, he knew, even if he wasn’t sure what was being stated.
You didn’t see nearly as much black at the museums. Keller went to museums now and then, and felt more at ease there than at private galleries. No one was lurking in the hope that you’d buy something, or waiting for you to express an opinion of the work. They just collected the admission fee and left you alone.
Declan Niswander’s paintings were representational. All things considered, Keller preferred it that way. There was plenty of abstract art he liked, and he tended to favor those artists he could recognize right off the bat. If you were going to make paintings that didn’t look like anything, at least you ought to shoot for an identifiable style. That way a person had something to grab hold of. One glance and you knew you were looking at a Mondrian or a Miró or a Rothko or a Pollock. You might not have a clue what Mondrian or Miró or Rothko or Pollock had in mind, but you wound up regarding them as old friends, familiar in their quirkiness.
Niswander’s work was realistic, but you didn’t feel like you were looking at color photographs. The paintings looked painted, and that seemed right to Keller. Niswander evidently liked trees, and that’s what he painted—slender young saplings, gnarled old survivors, and everything in between. There was a similarity—no question that you were looking at the work of a single artist, and not a group show in celebration of Arbor Day—but the paintings, united by their theme and by Niswander’s distinctive style, nevertheless varied considerably one from the next. It was as if each tree had its own essential nature, and that’s what came through and rendered the painting distinctive.
Keller stood in front of one of the larger canvases. It showed an old tree in winter, its leaves barely a memory, a few limbs broken, a portion of the trunk scarred by a lightning strike. You could sense the tree’s entire life history, he thought, and you could feel the power it drew from the earth, diminished over the years but still strongly present.
Of course you wouldn’t get any of that in Niswander’s little essay. The man had managed to fill two whole pages without once using the word tree . Keller was willing to believe the paintings weren’t just about trees—they were about light and form and color and arrangement, and they might even be about what Niswander claimed they were about—but the trees weren’t there by accident. You couldn’t paint them like that unless you honest-to-God knew what a tree was all about.
A woman said, “You can’t see the forest for them, can you?”
“You can imagine it,” Keller said.
“Now that’s very interesting,” she said, and he turned and looked at her. She was short and thin, and—surprise!—dressed all in black. Baggy black sweater and short black shirt, black panty hose and black suede slippers, a black beret concealing most of her short black hair. The
Not everyone was wearing black. Keller had shown up in a suit and tie, and he wasn’t the only one. There was a variety of other attire, including a few women in dresses and a young man in white overalls spattered with paint. But there was, on balance, a great deal of black, and it was the men and women in black who looked most at home here.
Maybe there was a good reason for it. Maybe you wore black to an art gallery for the same reason you turned off your pager at a concert, so as to avoid distracting others from what had brought them there. That made a kind of sense, but Keller had the feeling there was more to it than that. He somehow knew that these people wore black all the time, even when they gathered in dimly lit coffeehouses with nothing on the walls but exposed brick. It was a statement, he knew, even if he wasn’t sure what was being stated.
You didn’t see nearly as much black at the museums. Keller went to museums now and then, and felt more at ease there than at private galleries. No one was lurking in the hope that you’d buy something, or waiting for you to express an opinion of the work. They just collected the admission fee and left you alone.
Declan Niswander’s paintings were representational. All things considered, Keller preferred it that way. There was plenty of abstract art he liked, and he tended to favor those artists he could recognize right off the bat. If you were going to make paintings that didn’t look like anything, at least you ought to shoot for an identifiable style. That way a person had something to grab hold of. One glance and you knew you were looking at a Mondrian or a Miró or a Rothko or a Pollock. You might not have a clue what Mondrian or Miró or Rothko or Pollock had in mind, but you wound up regarding them as old friends, familiar in their quirkiness.
Niswander’s work was realistic, but you didn’t feel like you were looking at color photographs. The paintings looked painted, and that seemed right to Keller. Niswander evidently liked trees, and that’s what he painted—slender young saplings, gnarled old survivors, and everything in between. There was a similarity—no question that you were looking at the work of a single artist, and not a group show in celebration of Arbor Day—but the paintings, united by their theme and by Niswander’s distinctive style, nevertheless varied considerably one from the next. It was as if each tree had its own essential nature, and that’s what came through and rendered the painting distinctive.
Keller stood in front of one of the larger canvases. It showed an old tree in winter, its leaves barely a memory, a few limbs broken, a portion of the trunk scarred by a lightning strike. You could sense the tree’s entire life history, he thought, and you could feel the power it drew from the earth, diminished over the years but still strongly present.
Of course you wouldn’t get any of that in Niswander’s little essay. The man had managed to fill two whole pages without once using the word tree . Keller was willing to believe the paintings weren’t just about trees—they were about light and form and color and arrangement, and they might even be about what Niswander claimed they were about—but the trees weren’t there by accident. You couldn’t paint them like that unless you honest-to-God knew what a tree was all about.
A woman said, “You can’t see the forest for them, can you?”
“You can imagine it,” Keller said.
“Now that’s very interesting,” she said, and he turned and looked at her. She was short and thin, and—surprise!—dressed all in black. Baggy black sweater and short black shirt, black panty hose and black suede slippers, a black beret concealing most of her short black hair. The
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