This week’s arts and culture column is a review of a memoir (his first book, at 75!) by my college friend Dougie Dodd.
Our Father Who Art in an Iron Lung is a memoir about growing up with a father who was stricken with polio in his early 30s and lived 21 more years.
I visited the Norton Simon Museum today, home of Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree,” Zurburán’s “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose,” about which the Pultizer Prize- winning food critic Jonathan Gold once wrote an iconic essay, and Cézanne’s “Tulips in a Vase.”
One painting caught my eye that I’d never noticed before: “Resurrection” by Dieric (aka Dirk) Bouts, Flemish.
NORTON SIMON MUSEUM OF ART, PASADENA
The painting is on of the panels of the Crucifixion Altarpiece, together with the London Entombment. The central panel was probably the Crucifixion in Brussels.
here’s a commentary on the painting. I like it partly because of the hiddenness of his left foot and hand, and also because of the understated way Bouts depicted this stupendous, cosmos-shattering event. Cosmis-shattering it is and was, but the way it manifests in our daily lives is often barely discernible.
Nonetheless: the staff, the red banner, the angel, and Christ stepping firmly from the tomb. Peace be with you, too, my Lord.
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