Michelangelo Buys Figs, parts 1871 - 1874

1871. Although the church had heard of Vasari, and his biographies of the renaissance artists, she had never heard of any L’Indaco, so I got up his biography on my iPad and read it to her. I quote just the portions of his story that relate to Michelangelo, and you will perhaps notice its rather archaic style, although the wonder of it is that a biography written in 1550 can be so readable despite the run-on sentences.

 

1872. Vasari, from the life of L’Indaco: Now seeing that, as has been said, Michelangelo used to take pleasure in this man's chattering and in the jokes that he was ever making, he kept him almost always at his table; but one day Jacopo wearied him as such fellows more often than not do come to weary their friends and patrons with their incessant babbling, so often ill- timed and senseless; babbling.

 

 1873. I call it senseless, for reasonable talk it cannot be called, since for the most part there is neither reason nor judgment in such people and Michelangelo, who, perchance, had other thoughts in his mind at the time and wished to get rid of him, sent him to buy some figs; and no sooner had Jacopo left the house than Michelangelo bolted the door behind him, determined not to open to him when he came back.

1874. L' Indaco, then, on returning from the market square, perceived, after having knocked at the door for a time in vain, that Michelangelo did not intend to open to him; whereupon, flying into a rage, he took the figs and the leaves and spread them all over the threshold of the door. This done, he went his way and for many months refused to speak to Michelangelo.

Richard Britell

Michelangelo Buys Figs. parts 1859 - 1862

1859. I don’t need to tell you how perfect the coffee was, if you have ever had coffee prepared by a four hundred year old church you know quite well what I am talking about. As for the Anisette Toast, it was just the same as my Grandmother always had on hand: slightly stale so that it became the perfect texture when dipped into the coffee.

1860. While the church was in the kitchen of her church I began to think about all that she had said about the fate of the small churches, and the vagaries of the tourist trade. I am actually of the opinion that it is not the actual objects of art that are so important to the tourist traffic as the anecdotal stories attached to those objects that really matter to the average tourist.

1861. For example, I once came across an especially large and impressive church in Rome called the Lateran Basilica. On the steps was a person addressing a throng of people. He was talking about how the foundations of that church dated from Roman times and that it had been continuously revised and rebuilt. He explained in detail how a certain architect was asked to submit plans to the Pope for a reconstruction and that his plans were rejected.

1862. But the rejected architect was undaunted; he so believed in his plans that he argued with the Pope. He had the audacity to argue with the Pope! He won the argument and the Pope accepted his plans. From that story I understood something important. We must all go and argue with the Pope, and we must win our argument. I never even bothered to enter the church; I didn’t want to disturb that feeling. I walked away saying to myself, “I want to have an argument with the Pope, right away.”

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1751 - 1754

1751. It was at that moment that Proctor Cronk became a collector of works of art. It was not the usual setting for such a decision, one would rather expect it to happen in a museum, or at least in an art gallery, but it happened in a tar paper shack in a salvage yard.

1752. As so often happens, his first purchase had all of the characteristics of his later collecting life even down to the methods he used to get the object he was after. He was not entirely honest in his methods, but at least what he said was more believable than the Yardman’s claims of grandfathers with sepia photographs of the Coliseum.

1753. At first Proctor only wanted to repair his slightly damaged ego, by showing the Yardman that, although he might be able to diagnose a car problem from a distance, he did not know anything about art or its values. He intended to do this based on the assumption that the man did not know that the Russian icons were valuable. This was an easy mistake for him to make, seeing as he judged the man’s office space by conventional ideas about interior decoration.

1754. “Would you be willing to sell me this print of the “Madonna and Child,” you have here in the black frame?” Proctor inquired. He was referring to one of those sepia reproductions from an old Catholic calendar. The yardman said he would sell it for five dollars. “And what about this print of the Andrea Doria in the frame with the broken glass?” He asked. “Both for ten dollars if you want them but they are not really very good reproductions if you ask me.”

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1747 - 1750

 1747. Having their edges use as clothes hooks obscured even the various things hung on the walls. The tops of pictures were used as small shelves for miniature objects. The antler points of a moose held a collection of women’s gloves. Obviously valuable things were mixed up helter-skelter with worthless trash.

1748. There were only three things unencumbered and not being used in any inexplicable way, they were a large double barreled shotgun leaning next to the door jam under a World War 2 bayonet, and an old baseball bat.

1749. There were many paintings and prints hanging on the walls and Proctor discovered that the huge brown print of the coliseum in a wide oak frame could not be sold because it belonged to somebody’s grandfather who had been born someplace or other. He could not purchase the Piranesi print of a prison interior for a similar reason having to do with some other relative.

1750. The Yardman had a few real Russian Icons, as well as several very cheap prints of religious works. The prints were all in that sickly shade of brown used so often for old religious calendars. The icons, which were obviously valuable, were hung in a group next to the cheapest sort of religious images in frames without any glass. Proctor thought to himself, “they are sorted by subject regardless of their value.”

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1739 - 1742

1739. Oh sure, any day he wants to he can open up a restoration catalogue and buy a cheap aftermarket reproduction but what is the good of that. The man wants to buy the real thing, especially one that has a little damage and those little black pitted marks that show that it has existed for thirty years.

1740. And when his friends ask him if he is going to have it chromed so that it will look like new he is going to reply, “Yes, just as soon as I pay for my Grandma’s face lift, which will make just as much sense. No, you see he wants the ornament to look just the way it did thirty years ago, when his father drove out of the driveway that morning never to return.

1741. And in the ornament the father returns to the son in the driveway, for a fleeting instant, without any face life, without any re-plating. And you want me instead to sell it to you so you can put it on your fireplace mantle with your other knick-knacks.

1742. God, what a terrible drubbing young Proctor Cronk was getting at the hands of the yardman. He was taking a mental beating of the type that only a junkyard owner can administer.

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1735 - 1738

1735. In the trunk the yardman showed Proctor that the tire iron was rattling against the rim of the spare tire rhythmically with the vibrations of the engine. “If you want to sell this car, it has a good engine, don’t take less than seven hundred for it,” pronounced the yardman to Proctor.

1736. Proctor could not believe what had just happened. The yardman’s actions contradicted all of his assumptions about human behavior. Why would he avoid buying a perfectly good car that some dope does not know is sound? Many explanations occurred to him. The yardman did not care about money. The man preferred the pleasure of making a fool of him, to taking his car for twenty-five dollars. The man was just dumb, which explained the tarpaper shack and his obvious poverty.

1737. Nevertheless, Proctor was deeply impressed and wanted to find a way to express his appreciation. Thinking of the office full of assorted junk he asked the yardman if he would be willing to sell the hood ornament he had been polishing when he first walked into the shack. “What, said the yardman, you got a 34 Hudson you want to restore do you?”

1738. “No,” said Proctor, “but I have been thinking of making a collection of the hood ornaments of old cars.” “Don’t go doing that,” replied the yardman. “If you go around buying up the old hood ornaments of the old cars, then the people who really need them will have a harder time to find them. Can you imagine what it’s like for a person with a 1934 Hudson to look hopelessly for an authentic hood ornament.”

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk at Syracuse, parts 1731 - 1734

1731. To those in possession of the salvage yards however, their personalities do not appear distorted, on the contrary it is the rest of so called normal society that exists in an obviously distorted state, this they can see clearly from spending a lifetime sorting through their junk.

1732. Proctor drove his clunking 1954 Plymouth into the salvage yard, parked in front of the office which was a tar paper shack, walked in to a room full of all types of fantastic junk, and asked how much he could get for his car.

1733. The owner of the yard had his back to Proctor, and was cleaning a small metal object with a cloth. The object was the hood ornament of a 1934 Hudson. The junkyard man said, not turning around, “Why do you want to sell it?” “Because the engine is shot,” said Proctor. “No it’s not,” replied the yardman. “How do you know that?” Asked Proctor.

1734. The yardman did not reply, but turned around in his chair displaying his face that looked like a roasted chestnut. He stood up and asked Proctor to start the car up. Proctor did as his was told, and opened the hood for good measure. The yardman stood by the side of the car with his head cocked to the side, and after a few moments asked Proctor to leave the car running and to open the trunk.

Richard Britell

Coromo In New York, parts 1719 - 1722

1719. Some day perhaps they will realize their mistake, cover it over with burnt umber and ultramarine blue, rub it down with turpentine and return it to its rightfully aged dignity.

1720. The framer cut the edges from the canvas and glued then down to some thick cardboard being careful to use cardboard from very old boxes. After that he put them on the floor of his shop leaning against a wall, put out like cheese for mice, where his usual framing clients might come across them by accident and discover them.

1721. Aldo was one of the framer’s clients, along with a great many other small galleries who engaged in the framing trade to their great consternation, out of necessity. The small galleries that engaged in the framing trade tried to keep it as hidden as possible, only going so far as to put up a few very expensive frame samples on the wall near the desk, as if by accident, and keeping all the other necessary materials hidden until they were needed.

1722. Aldo, and the other galleries that engaged in framing longed for the day when they could dispense with the framing traffic and devote their time and energies simply to the selling of art, but somehow that day never arrived.

Richard Britell

Coromo In New York, parts 1715 - 1718

1715. The next day Tallulah threw all six Coromo’s out in the trash, and never though about them again. There are people in New York City who, every minute, are on the lookout for valuables out at the curb with the trash, some look for furniture and others look for potted plants, and still others are looking for paintings and frames with or without any pictures or glass. One such person was a picture framer by trade, and he took the six Coromo paintings and put them in the back seat of his car.

1716. He had no use for the paintings but he considered the stretchers to be worth something. He intended to pull the canvases from the stretchers, throw away the paintings, and put the stretchers into his stretcher bin. He did pull the canvas off of the stretchers but he changed his mind about the paintings. He stapled all six paintings to his workroom wall and painted them dark brown with some oil paint.

1717. He painted them entirely over with a dark burnt umber with a little ultramarine blue added to make it even blacker in tone and then he let them dry for four days. At the end of four days he soaked a rag in turpentine and rubbed as much of the brown paint from the Coromo paintings as he could get off the surface, and after that he rubbed them down with steel wool and waxed them. When he was done Coromo’s paintings looked like old antique primitive works someone might have dug out of the ground.

1718. Never underestimate the value of burn umber, ultramarine blue, turpentine and steel wool to make something look like an old and valuable work of art. A great many Rembrandts have been created out of lesser works by this exact process. Sometimes however the process is reversed. In the case of the Sistine Chapel all of the dirt and grime, which took four hundred years to accumulate, was entirely removed from the ceiling by the Japanese, making it look like a Disney cartoon instead of the grand historic work it is.

Richard Britell

Coromo In New York, parts 1711 - 1714

1711. Tallulah was described as an art dealer but that was not really accurate. She had an antique store in New York on Madison Avenue, up in the Seventies, it was a small establishment selling only French gilded furniture, gilded mirrors, gilded frames with old etchings of monuments, and the odd sentimental figure painting without any history, purchased from auctions.

1712. Nothing in her shop was newer that 1890, although she did occasionally include a dusty Ash Can school painting, or a German Expressionist etching since she was partial to Kathe Kollwitz. But like all dealers of art and antiques she wanted it understood that even though she showed only the dead, as the saying goes, she was well aware of all the interesting things going on in the world of the living.

1713. It was this desire to be seen as a person who read art journals and attended bi-annuals that motivated her to purchase the works of Coromo mistaking then for the Folk Art they resembled. She put them up in her shop in an dark corner in the back where they went unnoticed for a few weeks, and then one of her best clients noticed them and remarked about them saying, “What have you got here, a few fake Grandma Moses pieces.”

1714. Say what you want to about Outsider out, it can’t include any works by Grandma Moses. First of all she was clearly not psychotic, that is easy to see. Secondly she never spent any time in prison or mental institutions. Mentioning Grandma Moses in the same sentence with Adolph Wolfli is just like talking about Norman Rockwell in remarks about Goya. There are portraits in the works of both, but there the similarity ends.

Richard Britell

Casting Manhole Covers, parts, 300 - 303

Richard Britell June 28, 2012

300. A note to anyone reading these texts. When I started this story of my drive around southern France, I posted pictures that went with my story, such as the one above showing my car,  the 2CV. I was also posting pictures of the places I stopped and the interesting things I saw. But after I picked up the Duck he volunteered to choose all the pictures saying, "Your stuff is too dumb, let me do it for you." So the Duck took over the pictures.

301. So the Duck was doing the pictures, and then we picked up Buboni, and since then they have been doing the pictures together. Now, low and behold, I take a look and I see that they have been playing all sorts of tricks on me and putting up all kinds of crazy images which have no connection to the story I am telling. Look up there, what is a picture of Stalin doing in this story? This could be aggravating to people.

302. So I asked the Duck, "Why the picture of Stalin?" And this is what he said.  "Back in section 168, you were talking about how I went to the monastery to get my legs made the same length, and so I put up the picture of Stalin, because Stalin had one arm too short, and he was schooled in a church school like a monastery to be a Priest, it's perfectly obvious to me what the connection was, anyone would see it, and that goes for the above also."

303. This is what it is like dealing with the Duck with his perpetual memory, and complicated way of thinking.  I told him that in the future we would have to put some notes of explanations sometimes, and perhaps some links, and since you can't put links on Pinterest, they would have to be on the blog. Meanwhile, if anyone wonders what some of these pictures mean, just ask, and I will try to find out, and I am sure Buboni will help once he is better.

Casting Manhole Covers, parts, 296 - 299

Richard Britell June 27, 2012

296. I feel very bad spending so much time telling you about my trivial concerns with the plasters casts of the manhole covers, and in the meantime poor old Buboni was there in the front seat of the 2CV dying of cholera. I am sure you want to know what happened to him.

297. I am going to tell you outright that Buboni did not die. It all happened only just a few days ago, and I want to put your mind at rest about this, because I know you are concerned about him, just as I was.

298. I could have dragged the story out, and made you think he was going to die any instant, but that is the sort of thing professional writers do, and by now you probably realize that I am not one of those sorts.

299. But the great art historian's stay in the hospital was very interesting in many other ways, and that is what I want to tell you about.

Casting Manhole Covers, parts, 292 - 295

Richard Britell June 26, 2012

292. I was so upset about this I called Mrs. Festini at home the next day, but she know all about it. "You're not thinking", she said, "only the mold is reversed, when you pull out the cast it will be right reading."

293. "Just consider", said Festini over the phone,"the face you see in the mirror every day is reversed and it doesn't bother you, you never notice it, and when you see someone you know reflected in a window you would never even notice the face is reversed unless they had a license plate attached to their forehead, then you would see it instantly."

294. "Because a license plate is so much more important than a person's face isn't it Mr. Bartlesby," she said.

295. That was Mrs. Festini being sarcastic again.

Casting Manhole Covers, parts 288 - 291

Richard Britell June 25, 2012

288.I suppose, being a policeman on a night route, and having nothing to do, having someone to talk to was interesting for him.  I would work on my mold making and he would stand behind me and ask questions, one after another.

289. Bob, that was the policeman's name, wanted to know a lot of things. "Will it be bronze when it is done? How does the mold stay flat when you put the plaster in? Is it heavy when it is finished"? Bob was full of questions but I could tell he was not really interested because he never listened to my answers, he was just killing time.

290. One night he was there when I pulled the latex mold up from a manhole cover and he was very interested to see the result. I turned it over and showed it to him by the light of the street lamp. "This is interesting," he said, "look at the letters, they are all backward, don't you think it will look odd if the lettering is backward?" he wanted to know.

291. I was stumped and confused, it never crossed my mind that the mold would be all backward looking, and I didn't know what to say. "I'll have to ask Mrs. Festini about this right away", I said. I had to put my project on hold for a time till I figured things out.  I tried to remember if my hand was backward when I cast it in plaster, was it a left or a right, I didn't know.

Casting Manhole Covers, parts 284 - 287

Richard Britell June 24, 2012

284. In our art room at the museum were some art journals and from the pictures in those magazines I got a feeling for what was bothering my art teacher, but for her to say  the exhibits were intended to make people feel stupid was going to far. It certainly looked peculiar to me, but they must have had their reasons, I'm sure.

285. Anyway, I took Mrs. Festini's advice and started to go out late at night to make plaster casts of manhole covers and sewer grates. The first night I painted the latex mold material onto a manhole on a side street, and on the next night it was cured and ready to be removed.

286. I made many molds this way. A policeman did stop me and asked what I  was doing but I did not take Mrs. Festini's advice, I just said it was an art project for a museum art class, and I did it at night so as not to be disturbed.

287. The same policeman drove that neighborhood every night and he invariably stopped to see how I was doing and how my project was coming along.

Casting Manhole Covers, parts 280 - 283

280. Mrs. Festini said, "If anyone asks you what you are doing just say it is an project for an art exhibit at a Museum, as soon as they hear that they will go away and leave you alone, you will see". "And why would that be Mrs. Festini"? I asked.

281. 'Because art exhibits in museums make most people feel stupid and ignorant  so they want to get away from such things as soon as they possibly can.  As a matter of fact, any exhibit that does not make ordinary everyday people feel ignorant and stupid is hardly worth anything, take my word for it." she was in a bad mood when she said that.

282. What Mrs. Festini said could not have been true, but I could tell she was going through a difficult time ever since her still life painting had been rejected from the museum show by the curator from Detroit.

283. After the rejection of her painting she started to make frequent trips up to Detroit to see art exhibits in galleries up there, and after each trip she would be in an angry mood. She felt that her paintings would never be in a Museum because they only wanted bad art. I don't know what she was looking at up there, I have never been to Detroit.

Casting Manhole Covers, Parts 276 - 279

Richard Britell June 22, 2012

276. I got together all my equipment and I went to the cover I had picked out, but couldn't go through with it. I was sure that if anyone saw me casting a manhole cover they would think I was crazy.

277. On Saturday I told Mrs. Festini about my problem;  how I  wanted to cast the man hole cover in plaster but couldn't because I felt too self conscious.

278. In the art room there is a book shelf with a collection of art books and she got down a book on an artist named Albert Ryder. She read the part in it that explained how Albert, to get ideas for his paintings would go out walking all night long, and would 'Soak up the moonlight' to use in his work.

279. What Mrs. Festini was suggesting was that I make the cast in the middle of the night when there was nobody around to bother me. Going out all night for your art work must have been fine for Mr. Ryder, but I still felt odd about doing it.

Chapter 6, Casting Manhole Covers, parts 272 - 275

Richard Britell June 21, 2012

272.  Before I tell you what happened to Buboni at the hospital I feel I should go back and explain what I said about myself in part 251. It was true that I was out walking in the middle of the night, but I want to tell you how it came about.

273. At first I went walking after dinner, and at the time I was often lost in thought about what was so important to me back then, making plaster casts for my sculpture class.

274. I had succeeded with the cast of my hand, and had also made a cast of my foot but now I was trying to think of something more interesting. On my walks I was noticing all of the interesting shapes in the road and  got the idea to make a cast of one of them.

275. I considered casting a sewer lid, and a sewer grate, and also those square metal covers over electrical connections in the sidewalk. I considered casting a form of the stamps the masons use in the sidewalk, but I made up my mind to do one of those big round steel plates that cover electrical terminals in the road, the ones about 3 feet wide with all the embossment and lettering.

Cholera, parts 268 - 271

Richard Britell June 21, 2012

268. Buboni continued with his ranting "And then the Pope would have to go to work, knowing every instant that it was all a big farce, a big charade, a Punch and Judy show, a sad magic trick everyone sees through, a worn out one act play with no plot..." As he raved he put his face closer and closer to the Abbot, flecks of foam flew from his lips. He took a step back and then collapsed onto the floor in a heap. 

269. "It's Cholera", said the Abbot. "Where is the nearest hospital" said the Duck,  "I will go get the car", I said. And so we prepared to do something about our dear art historian friend, but the Abbot said, "It may already be too late.

270. The Abbot made a phone call and informed us; the hospital was full and could take no more patients, we were to transport him to an auxiliary location, the former World War I Armory was being use about six miles from Dannersville. We set out, Buboni riding in the front seat for once.

271. The entire six miles the old man was nearly incoherent, he kept babbling on with his art history nonsense, stopping mid-sentence and changing the subject. He was especially concerned about the Popes, and their art commissions, but I could make no sense out of it. "Its obvious", said the Duck,"He is the 'Pope' and Catholicism is his art history, he now is beginning to think of it as a big crock of duck excrement. 

Chapter 5, Cholera!, parts 264 - 267

Richard Britell June 20, 2012

264. The Abbot went on,"His trust fund paid for his keep at the institution but when he was about thirteen he ran away. The next time he appears it is in Lyons selling Bibles door to door. The next few years were difficult for him because he had no papers or identification, but correspondence with the religious  orphanage established his identity. 

265. Here Buboni let out another low moan, and we realized it was not his impatience with the fanciful story of the Nigerian, the groan was because he had not gotten over his indisposition from the night before.  He left us for another visit to the bathroom. Off he went, using his crutch, and dragging his broken foot behind him.

266. The Duck gave me a significant look. Buboni had not touched his lunch.  When he came back from the bathroom the duck said, "Buboni, you are pale as a ghost, or, as Twain would say, 'you are toad belly white'".

267. Buboni ignored him and sat down again, and the Abbot continued talking of the Nigerian. "He will come into an inheritance when he reaches his 24th" but suddenly Buboni stood up to his full height, threw his crutch on the floor and shouted. "What if the Pope woke up one morning and realized that the entire history of Catholicism was an entire crock of bull"