March 23, 2023 : Wondercab Mini (38A)
FOLLOWING ON FROM OUR LAST MINICAB
We got a lot of fan mail for our last Minicab (#37A) which as you may recall featured this short iPhone video of David Hockney and his studio’s jumbo wall-sized reproduction of Bruegel’s Tower of Babel—indeed, some of you asked if we had any other such videos, and so here one is, though we should warn you before you open it that it ends up being semi-NSFW; frisky toddlers of all ages, however, will probably find it utterly entrancing.
The sheer protean variety and prodigious liveliness of Breugel’s capacious imagination shines through—its full-hearted openness to all things human—and for that matter puts us back in mind of several of Edward Snow’s insights as plumbed back in Issue #31. Some of you may recall how Snow wrote an entire book, Inside Bruegel, and a truly great one at that (with fresh insights on every single page), based on fifteen years of looking at just one of Bruegel’s paintings, Children’s Games.
The thing is that almost all of Bruegel’s paintings can bear—indeed call out for—that kind of scrutiny.
Anyway, as it happened Bruegel and Snow and the Tower and the Games were all still careening about in my mind a few weeks back when I ventured down to Easton, Maryland, to give a talk at the Academy Art Museum there. The excellent sponsors of the talk, Richard Marks and his wife (the swell restauranteuse) Amy Haines, put me up in their snug little guesthouse, where, as it happened, I presently found myself falling under the spell of an uncannily carved contemporary Peruvian gourd luxuriating on a stand off to the side. I was going to say I had never seen anything like it, but in fact that wouldn’t be exactly right, for what it completely reminded me of—in terms of the protean variety and prodigious liveliness, the sheer capacious generosity of vision and execution—was one of those Bruegel paintings. Richard and Amy agreed completely, though they didn’t know terribly much about the gourd’s creator, beyond the signature and hometown to be found on its base: one Pablo Hurtado Lavierno of Huancayo, Peru. (Richard himself had come upon the piece years ago in a Peruvian handicrafts shop, which even then appeared to be on its last legs, while on vacation in Maine.) Clearly the gourd’s creator is some kind of master. Nor was the internet terribly helpful in gleaning much else, though I am continuing to probe. There was a nice piece on the art of Peruvian gourd carving in Smithsonian magazine a while back, which included an informative video (on the basis of which I infer that this particular gourd affords an exceptionally large and detailed instance of the craft). If anyone out there knows more about any of this, do please include any clues or insights in the comments below. Meanwhile though, just look at this thing. Look and marvel. And join me in thanking Amy and Richard for affording us the opportunity.
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A PERUVIAN GOURD
Party on, and see you next week!