One blog sometimes leads to another. A few days ago I blogged about going to the art exhibit at the Everson. That blog got me thinking about why I don't get terribly overwhelmed about visiting art museums, even though I usually enjoy them when I get there. I think this slight antipathy for Rembrandt and Renoir and all those French artists whose names start with "M" may date from 10th grade.
In 10th grade, I was in Honors World History class. I'm quite sure it was called world history at that time, although, the study of how our country got to be, had a variety of names when I was growing up. In 7th grade we studied Citizenship Education, which we shortened to Cit Ed, pronounced like a command to a dog named Edward. In 8th grade at least, we took Social Studies, but that was soon renamed because it suggested both "socialism" and "social diseases" to certain extremely reactionary, but apparently influential, people. By the time we got to 10th grade, I'm quite sure we were taking just plain history.
Our teacher was a wonderful man named Reuben Garner. A small man, he wore a beret and drove a Jaguar, and I swear, he sort of walked on his toes as he crossed the room, he so possessed a small man's grace. He lived in the city of Rochester and took groups of students to Europe during the summer, so he was both cosmopolitan and continental to us. He was rich, too, hence the Jag, although, it was said that his wife had all the money, because how could a teacher ever become rich. He was also a Jewish man in a very waspy school, which made him all the more interesting and exotic.
Mr. Garner taught with flair. If we were studying the "zemsky sobor," he taught with a Russian accent. He had a potted plant on his window shelf named after some African revolutionary. Patrice Lumumba, I think. I remember when he lectured one day about someone named "We Dooz." I had no idea who this person was, but in my notes I wrote down, We Dooz did this or that or the other thing. I even asked a question about why We Dooz did one of those things. Finally, the kid next to me, who was taking French, while I was taking Spanish, whispered to me that "We Dooz" was Mr. Garner pronouncing Louis the 12th, the French way. I was quietly mortified.
Mr. Garner believed that our history education needed to be enriched with outside readings like Edith Hamilton's THE GREEK WAY, and with art lectures. A gentleman (I think his name may have been Mr. Dry) from the Rochester Museum of Art or the U of R or someplace artsy came once a month with slides to lecture us on Art. Not during class time, mind you, but for TWO HOURS after school. There are a multitude of things that 10th graders enjoy doing after school is over. One of those is not sitting in a dark room being lectured on the topic of "Art Through the Centuries" or "Art and You" or "Art in An Ever Expanding World" or whatever the hell it was called. The title should have been "This is Boring, Even the Nudes."
On the third Tuesday of each month, (I'm just guessing as to the day it actually was), we faced the dreaded trudge down the Greek way, or up the hills of Rome, or through the Renaissance, wherever cathedrals and columns, frescoes and facades could be found. I can't speak for my classmates, but I remember nothing about the art! I do remember that kids tried to get their mothers to schedule after school doctor or dentist appointments for them on art lecture days whether they needed them or not. I do remember that someone in one of Mr. Garner's classes, (God forbid not his honors class) had tied the cord on one of his blinds into a neat little hangman's noose. I remember studying that little noose for about an hour during one lecture and wondering if we could drag Mr. Dry to the noose and string him up before anyone could stop us. And I also remember that Mr. Garner would leave the lectures on occasion. Leave for like 20 MINUTES, which told me that HE WAS BORED, TOO!
And that is why I believe that great ART just ain't always that great to me. THE END!
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