GREGORY O’BRIEN
Ode to Art History
for Ron Padgett and Ian Wedde
Beloved ditch or heavenly ridge
on which we go
for minerals, and behind whose silhouette
the dustbin-lid sun
spins and coils – on you, Art History, I bestow
the laurels of Greece, the gold chain
of Amsterdam, the beery teeshirts of Long Island.
Chronicle of both the excesses
and the pointless austerities of the human spirit,
you have your bowls
of fruit and your raging bulls, your
exceptional beauties scudding into view
on seashells. Art History, you are certainly
opinionated, if not always comely –
you have your seasons, your plummeting leaves
and in winter no shortage
of compost. Neither exactly learned nor
intoxicated, you rarely know what day it is
yet you are a devourer of dates – you love
your epochs, the pristine
packaging of each century, but it is
your blindnesses that will endure,
your upside-down slide talks, your fake Gauguins
your cheap reproductions.
Art History, you have sullied centuries of
the most impeccable surfaces
with the foulest of inscriptions and the occasional
lyrical flight, with your English
education, your French accent, Italian style and a manner
of dress that is entirely
Zambezi. I would have you know that for your lesser cousin,
Art, I have leapt up the steps of the Tate Gallery
three at a time, scoured the graveyards of Paris
to sit beneath Brancusi’s ‘Kiss’
cradling a poor reproduction. I have scattered the sheep
on Peggy’s Hill to sit where Colin sat
and I have distressed the custodians of the New Museum,
New York, transfixed by the paintings
of Pierre Tal-Coat, my nose almost touching
the flecks of pigment. All this for something
that is almost but not quite
you. I have played a long night of
ping pong with Tony Fomison. But you, you do not
seek the company of painters –
or is it painters who do not seek your company?
Alas, Art History, you are not often enough
found in the beds of artists, it is the beds of
businessmen and vice-chancellors that claim you.
Sometimes it almost seems you have been sent to punish
those of us who still love Art,
to make us pay for our transgressions.
But we will reinvent you
as we reinvent the wheel each uncomplaining day.
And if Art is a living compost
of birds, insects, putti, burgeoning lettuces and
those exquisitely rendered
pears that will be falling for all time, then I think of you as pure
light source, an endlessly fading or darkening arena
in which I crane my neck or close my eyes,
night air grazing my
freshly shaven cheek. Art History, on whose
chalky ground your disciples write
with wet fingers, or ply their quills, or count the
brilliantly timed rotations of
their ballpoint pens – and the less reliable
bearings of their mind –
you are perfectly capable of celebrating the tawdry
and woe-be-gone. At a certain junction
your facts break loose from your grand narrative
and begin ascending a shade-dappled
slope, beyond which they are never heard of again.
But, Art History, you box on
regardless, never less than sure of your highly critical
selves. Your most spectacular descriptions
are married to the most base matter – fallibility is
your virtue. As the cricket commentator
says – and you would do well to listen –
‘you can’t make a BMW out of
Mini parts’. And how many Giottos does it take
to make a Giorgione, and how many
Rembrandts add up to a Rubens?
Such powers of invention you might bring
to your conundrums. Just as William of Nassau at the siege
of Grol was killed
by a fragment of spoon – the besieged folk
were reduced to loading their cannons with
kitchen utensils – who wouldn’t mind being bowled over
by a well-rendered implement.
More than your smudges, smears and frail outlines –
such arresting detail. Such accuracy.
But, finally, Art History, you are many things and you are
more than that – sublime tower,
crumbling outhouse, Taranaki fence or Southland
crib, surf club or mobile library
box of birds, nest of ninnies,
can of worms. At your very best, I suppose you are
a room in which we might discuss these things
or, on a good day, marvel at them. Yet
no matter what the weather does, can it ever
reproduce your skies? We glory
in you, bask in your
ordinariness and splendour,
your seriousness – so often on the brink
of uproarious laughter.
Art History, under whose disapproving nose
the cigarettes of another generation
of bohemians light up. And on whose
shapely knee
we bounce our angriest babies. Oh sight for sore eyes
replenish me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gregory O’Brien writes poems and essays mostly. A collection of the latter is forthcoming from VUP in March 2002. He is curator of John Drawbridge; Wide Open Interior, an exhibition opening at the City Gallery Wellington in December 2001.