The Poulterers

My boys don’t mind art museums at all.  You have to space it out properly, of course.  They wouldn’t go for it from dawn to dusk three days in a row, that’s for certain.

But if you can keep it focused, keep moving and mix it up, they’re in.

I’ve got to say that being Catholic helps a lot.   Helps in the sense that the signs and symbols of Christian iconography are familiar to them and something they are not surprised to talk about. It’s not weird or foreign to them to be part of a visual scavenger hunt in which we look for St. Jerome’s lion or we figure that this Franciscan is St. Anthony of Padua because he’s carrying the Christ Child or that we know this (and this..and this…and this) is  St. Peter because of the keys and the rooster.  And that we always know St. John the Baptist because he is always wearing his animal skin and carrying his standard, even if he is a little child.

That said, we have fun with the other end of the artistic spectrum, as well.   I’ve found that I have much more patience with contemporary, non-representational art in the presence of my children, because they like it.   Their fresh imaginations and open minds can see much more in a canvas with a strip down the middle or a pile of candy in a corner than mine usually can.

One day – I think it was the Friday of our week – in Milan, we went to the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery – which was wonderful.

It was fairly late in the afternoon – perhaps around 3:30, and we were mostly alone in the thirty-eight, mostly smallish rooms. I had some pieces I wanted to see – the Christo Morto by Mantegna being at the top of the list.

See it I did, as well as a wealth of other works. What a wonderful (relatively) small museum.   I find that as I get older, art fatigue takes hold sooner than ever on a museum tour.  I can’t imagine and have no desire to try to conquer epic institutions along with massive crowds these days.

We spent about an hour and a half there, saw all of the rooms, but it still  could have been longer. I could have certainly lingered, but the under-10 set, while patient, is only so patient.  And while they certainly know the rules of museum-going, that doesn’t mean I’m still not on constant alert and a little on edge, not out of a fear of purposeful touching, which wouldn’t happen, but rather out of frank terror that a 6-year old in perpetual, often spastic and always enthusiastic motion is bound to fall into a 15th century Nativity sooner or later.

(Didn’t happen. This time.)

Some points that interested me:

First,  of course not all paintings are on display. Such is the case with any museum.  But here at the Pinacoteca di Brera, those storage areas are right in the galleries – behind secure doors, of course, but those doors are glass and you can peer through them, see the rows of stacked, stored canvases, and wonder about them.

Secondly – and this was just fascinating – the restoration area is right in the middle of a gallery.  It’s glassed-in, certainly, but it’s right there – adjacent to room XX, I believe.   Since we were there so late, the restorers had stored their tools away and were gone for the day, which was too bad. I would liked to have seen them at work.   And indeed – as the museum website indicates, these were the two paintings being restored at the time (mid-March 2011) – the Bellini, as it happens, also being one of those on my list.

So now.  The boys were content enough with the visit, having done their Symbol Scavenger Hunt, seen some blood, compared and contrasted various depictions of the Christ Child and stood amazed in front of enormous, floor-to-ceiling canvases and wondered along with their stumped mother how these pieces were transported around from studio to palazzo and then, eventually here.

And then they were stopped short by this:

Vincenzo Campi, The Poulterer (Pollivendola)

You can probably figure out why, even from the reproduction, although I assure you the effect was even more vivid in person, for you can see the furrows in his brow and the concern in his eyes – the look on the boy’s face!

My own little boys, standing centuries apart from this one, were mesmerized and actually couldn’t stop laughing.  My interpretation was that he was being told to just do it – ring the duck’s neck, as his mother had just done to the fowl on her lap and as undoubtedly he had seen hundreds of times in his life – but he just doesn’t  want to.  Is it the first time he’s had to do this? Is this duck a special friend of his? It’s funny and sad all at once.

Not the most delicate of images, rather plain-spoken and direct, but it told a story and you know all about children and stories.

It’s all it takes: the hint, the promise of a story, the story of those puffy cheeks, worried brow and that appealing gaze.

What do you think happens next?

Irresistible.