de Young & de Restless

There is really nothing like seeing a famous painting in the flesh. It doesn’t matter how many reproductions you’ve seen, from postcards to Broadway shows. When you are actually standing in front of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC there’s nothing to say but “oh yeah.” Except it’s more like “oh yeaaaaaaaaaah.” This is not only true of the classics like that one but also the sub-species of incredible stuff you usually only see reprinted on coffee cups and sheet sets and t-shirts.

I mention Van Gogh specifically because his “Bedroom at Arles” painting is at the current Impressionist exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. The show is called “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond” and there are approximately 100 works of art on loan from the Musee d’Orsay and I recognized some of them from the three or four times I was actually standing in front of them in Paris. My brain could barely handle the overload. A stunning exhibit and I feel privileged to have been in SF coincidental to its being there too. I would probably be horribly disappointed if I made the same trip to the Musee in Paris and all of these works were on loan in the United States.

Even though I was thrilled to see the originals I confess I was moved to buy a Seurat jigsaw puzzle as a present and I was pleasantly surprised to receive a Van Gogh coffee cup. I’m at least a consumer with taste. Good or bad is in the eye of the beholder. The cup is dishwasher & microwave safe and is Made in China.