by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: July 21, 2008   Last Updated: October 11, 2010

Art at the New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is moving, or at least some of it is. Even when not in person, great art, such as the art of Braque, is moving even when viewing on the Internet. The only two paintings of this French Cubist Painter that are housed there are The Studio and Candle and Playing Cards on a Table. (This fact may change with loans and with interactions with other galleries.) The light shining through a window in Braque's studio painting may also suggest, to some art researchers, the light that shines through the windows in the Last Supper, a painting by Leonardo  de Vinci.

 
Incongruous as that might seem to some, others may see connections.  In art, these types of reactions are common.  In The Last Supper, Leonardo had as his light source three window panels and the center one frames Christ's head, making it the perfect backdrop and theme for the whole horizontal painting. In The Studio, Braque also has as his light source for his room where he painted three panels in the left background. Nothing except light shines through, of course making even a remote comparison ludicrous; except it is not, to my way of thinking.

Braque, during his combat duty in World War 1 sustained a head injury that took him away from his painting for a couple of years. It was several years later that he painted this painting and by then he was somewhat famous. And his life experiences, as all art experts will say, serves only to make a seasoned artist, a better and more seasoned artist. And the delightful thing about making comparisons to one artist's work to another, is the knowledge that perhaps the younger artist may have, knowing or unknowingly, learned from the older artists. In other words, they too were moved by the art of the other. 

Thoughts such as why did they paint in the way they painted, what message are they trying to convey, what kind of personality is reflected in the work, often come to the minds of viewers when they come face to face, with great art.  Free associative thoughts are the tools of the museum going public, it is why they spend good money, lots of time, and walk and walk and walk and gaze in wonder at what creative individuals from out of the past have wrought. And wonder too, is part of the thinking process.

In the example with the two painting compared, Braque and Leonardo, visitors may wonder, are these two painters more reverent toward their heavenly creator than their art shows? Leonardo, of course

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