The Art We Were Born to Love

Robert Krulwich fell in love with Cezanne on a trip to MOMA when he was eight years old and the affair endures:

To this day I cannot explain what happened to me. The fact that it kept happening — keeps happening, all these (almost) 60 years since — is one of the mysteries of my life. Cezanne produced precarious little worlds that almost, almost, almost lose their balance, but somehow hold themselves together, creating tension, beauty and danger all at once. But why would these crazy dares thrill an 8-year-old? What was it about me that was ready for Cezanne? Because I was so ready. Even in the second grade.

Here's all I can think: that when we are born, we are born with a sort of mood in us, a mood that comes to us through our genes, that will be seasoned by experience, but deep down, it's already there, looking for company, for someone to share itself with, and when we happen on the right piece of music, the right person, or, in this case the right artist, then, with a muscle that is as deep as ourselves, with the force of someone grabbing for a life preserver, we attach. And that's what happened to me that day.

There are things I feel the same way about. Gothic architecture is one; stone circles another. There is music that, when I heard it, made me feel like I had been singing the tune since birth or before. (Here is one, by Loreena McKennit. Also Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor.)

But I confess that the things that grabbed me most powerfully as a boy and still grab me are not art of such high pedigree. I love pictures full of details, especially details of architecture and clothes, and highly detailed maps with little pictures of buildings.

Also archaeological maps, which goes a long way toward explaining my profession.

Much of my favorite painting has a richness of detail and association rather than any sort of purity or perfection. And all of this is related to why I love history with its mass of details more than philosophy, natural selection more than relativity, long novels (and better yet trilogies) more than short stories, and the painful mess of this life far more than visions of nirvana or heaven.