Art

Michelangelo's powerful statue of Moses, frustrated by the people's refusal to attend to the word of God, sits in a church a few hundred yards from the Roman Coliseum. (If you missed last week'a blog post, Sarah and I were on her choir's trip to Italy.) A few miles away from the Moses statue, people are lined up to stand for hours to get a ticket allowing them to wind hours more through the Vatican Museum, to get 15 minutes sardined with other tourists craning up to see the Sistine chapel. Because of the constraints of our trip, we did not have the opportunity to see the Sistine Chapel. No one was lined up to see the statute of Moses, which was one of the more beautiful pieces of art we saw.


On the other hand, as famous sites go, the tower of Pisa (and the church complex around it) fell into the category of "things I'd seen pictures of but until you get there, you have no idea." I had a visceral reaction to the tower of Pisa that reminded me of seeing the Grand Canyon. It is bigger and more beautiful than I could have imagined, and it is leaning further than seems possible.

But the strongest reaction I had to any art was hearing Confirma Hoc, a song in Latin, performed by Sarah's girls' choir in a 16th century church in Rome. The music was written with overlapping parts, and the perfect harmonies echoed and swirled in the cavernous marble space. I was not the only person with tears streaming down my face.

Some years ago, in a monologue performance, Lily Tomlin held up an (imaginary) can of Campbell's soup; then an (imaginary) Andy Warhol painting of a can of Campbell's soup. "Soup, Art," she said. "Art? Soup?"

I am prepared to live without knowing exactly what art is, or even what "great" art is. But certainly our lives are enriched by experiencing the work that moves us deeply.