Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
My new Arnold Friedman lithograph arrived yesterday, just in time for me to drop it off at the framer before leaving for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this morning. It was even more beautiful than I’d expected, so much so that I gasped when I took it out of the package, as did my houseguest.
“Can you believe I only paid $225 for it?” I asked her.
“Omigod,” she replied, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’ve paid more than that for shoes.”
“Alas, how miserable their good looks made him! The pain of watching beautiful young girls, the isolation of desire! They reminded him of the figures in one of those pictures by Watteau that are instinct with the beauty of the moment, the fugitive distress of hedonism, the sadness that falls like dew from pleasure, as they stand, fixed in the movement of the dance, beneath the elms, beneath the garlanded urn.”
Cyril Connolly, The Rock Pool
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