Day 2: November 10, 2016, #506

The Down and Dirty

A metal door in the corner with an exit push bar was the giveaway. Some time ago, this space had simply been a pass-through. Later, the door had been painted the same yellow as the walls and the room had been given a gallery number. Its lemony paint job had dulled over time and now had a forgotten tinge. In truth, #506 was the corridor to the splendor of the Met’s Venetian bedroom, #507. With its lavish bed and celebratory putti, that room elicited strong reactions, especially giggles from adolescents whose minds travelled to fresh and awkward territory. But #506 aroused little emotion. Visitors glided through as if ferried on gondolas with no intention of stopping. 

An iron prow from one had been mounted to the left of a doorway. Christ hung alone not too far away. Crucified. His porcelain head slumps forward. Gorgeous locks fall beneath his crown of thorns. The internal pressure puffing his chest into slick, white, hard paste perfection meant the passion was not over. Spirit remains. A wound on his right-side drips like an embroidered garland. His nakedness mesmerized me, sprung by the light that danced across his body. Almost dead, but still alive. Soft paste porcelain figures were stationed in an adjacent vitrine. But what use were a matte-white Mary and John to him?

The air conditioning rattled away. Dingy traces of the city discolored the yellow wall just below the vent. A red “exit” sign made a bid for attention. Glory had given up its shine, but, more than that, something was lost. Christ had no cross. St. John was missing a toe. The gold thread on a chasuble, under Plexiglas nearby, had tarnished. The room had not been taken seriously in a long while. But it hung on. With its strange dimensions, higher than it was wide or deep, its lofty premise felt cut to size.  This passion needed a resurrection.

Steps away in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, the annual decoration of the Neapolitan Christmas tree had halted. No one was around. Workers had started at the top and angel ornaments already heralded good tidings of great joy here and there. Still, folding screens at its base could not disguise the extent of their progress. Any visitor could see that this artificial tree completely lacked its bottom half. The visual struck me as a slightly indecent. Perhaps that owed something to feeling like a Peeping Tom. More likely, though, it was my reaction to a punctured ideal. The museum did such a good job of cultivating an illusion of effortless beauty that I was taken back by the evidence of work. I did not want to know the down and dirty. I guess I thought there were elves.