The Art Gallery
by Michael Smith

 

 

Once upon a time there were three sisters, Alice, Beatrice and Charlotte, whose ages covered the full spectrum of teenage-hood. They were very close, and did many things together. One afternoon, they visited the Art Gallery in the big city.

“Three tickets, please,” requested Alice, the eldest sister, “and a guide book.”

“Here you are, miss. I hope you have a pleasant visit.”

“Do we have to spend an afternoon in this dreary place?” demanded Beatrice in her belligerent voice, the one she used when life was not going as perfectly as she’d planned.

“Sssh!” replied Alice, “Keep your voice down. It’s pouring with rain outside, and I thought we’d take the opportunity to educate ourselves a little.”

“It’ll be boring,” sulked Beatrice, “do they have a gift shop?”

“Yes, it’s the last place we visit on the tour. Be patient.”

Beatrice grunted her disapproval.

“The first set of paintings is in the room over here. Follow me.”

Alice strode determinedly to the room dedicated to nineteenth century landscapes, followed by an enthusiastic Charlotte, the youngest sister. Beatrice, initially dragging her feet, now ran up to Alice and demanded to see the gallery guide.

“Show me the map of the place,” asked Beatrice forcefully. She spent a moment perusing the floor plan before announcing, “Come on then, this way.”

“Beatrice, slow down, this is not a race. Take some time to view the exhibits.” But it was too late, Beatrice was already half way round the first room, spending only a few seconds looking at each painting, gaining only a superficial impression of the artists’ work.

Alice and Charlotte refused to be bullied by the impatience of their middle sister, and wandered purposefully around the collection. Charlotte asked several questions of her sister Alice, and received knowledgeable replies, bordering on passionate. It would have been clear to anyone overhearing their conversation that for Alice this room represented her favourite period of art.

As they entered the next room, one dedicated to examples of the impressionists, they caught a brief glimpse of Beatrice as she exited the room following a brief circuit of the artwork on display.

Charlotte looked up to her eldest sister, “She’s being a bit silly, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” replied Alice, “she’s not making the most of this opportunity.”

“I liked the pictures in the last room,” observed Charlotte.

“Yes,” replied Alice in agreement.

“And these look good too,” enthused Charlotte.

“Really? Why do you like them?” asked Alice.

“They’re funny. If you screw up your eyes so the pictures are a bit out of focus, they look even better.”

“Oh,” replied Charlotte, “I prefer the realism of the first room.”

As Alice and Charlotte entered the third room of the gallery, once again they caught a fleeting glimpse of Beatrice as she continued her whirlwind tour.

“If you thought the paintings in that room were a bit funny, this next room will astound you even more. This third room is for abstract paintings.”

“What does abstract mean?” asked Charlotte.

Alice pondered for a moment, searching for an example Charlotte might grasp.

“If I asked you to draw a flower, could you?”

“Yes, of course. Not a good one; but I could draw it.”

“If I asked you to draw what a toothache was like, could you?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Charlotte tentatively.

“Could you draw something that represents the pain?”

“Maybe, but it would be difficult.”

“Well, that’s abstract art.”

“Do you like it?”

“No,” replied Alice firmly, looking around the exhibits glumly, “I don’t care for it very much. I like things to represent what they really are, like in the first room. And you?”

“I like it, it’s funny.”

“Let’s move on to the fourth room. It’s for contemporary art. And I bet we don’t see Beatrice in there. At the speed she’s going, she’ll already be in the gift shop.”

“What’s contemporary art?”

“It’s art done by painters who are still alive.”

“Oh, is that all.”

Charlotte looked around with enthusiasm at each of the contemporary paintings. Alice looked too, but without the same verve. Following several minutes silence, Charlotte looked up to her eldest sister and said, “You don’t like these do you, I can tell. You want to go back to the first room.” 

Alice smiled. “Let’s move on to the final room. It’s an exhibition by a local painter, although I find her work somewhat sombre and nihilistic.”

“You always use such difficult words when describing art. What do you mean?”

“Well, Charlotte, the artist is trying to portray that life is meaningless.”

“Maybe she was just unhappy when she painted them; maybe her pet rabbit had died, or something?”

“Yes, maybe,” laughed Alice. “Shall we see if Beatrice has left us any ice cream in the gift shop?”

“You don’t like this room either, do you, Alice.”

“No. I much preferred the first room. You knew where you were with that sort of art.”

“Look, there’s Beatrice.”

The three sisters rendezvoused by the gift shop check-out. The cashier asked Charlotte what she and her sisters had thought of the gallery.

“Alice, that’s my big sister, really liked the first room. I think this is because she found it so much easier to understand. When we visited the other rooms, she kept wanting to go back to the first one.”

“And your other sister?”

“Beatrice? Well, I don’t know what she thought of the pictures. She just whizzed around quickly, like it was some sort of race. I don’t think she understood much of the art, really. And now she’s complaining that it all went by so quickly.”

“And what about you?”

“Oh, I loved all of it. I liked that there were so many different types of picture. It would have been a bit boring if it had all been the same, wouldn’t it?”

 

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