Toby Looks at Art: The Secret of Modern Painting
Straight from th Horse's Mouth
By Steve Martin
 

One of the most memorable events of my life was a personal tour through the Metropolitan Museum of Art given to me by its elegant director, Philippe de Montebello. Hi, I'm Toby, the talking horse. Philippe did not try to explain every work in the museum to me, as he knew I had extensive knowledge. In fact, he let me tour several galleries on my own and left me alone in the Impressionist wing for a full hour. My favorite artists are, of course, Degas, Stubbs, Munnings, Géricault. Degas was a great painter of the world of ballet, but I prefer his racing-day pictures. Stubbs was a wonderful painter of animals, but I enjoy his horse paintings more than the animal pictures. Munnings, the great English sporting painter, did many fine athletic subjects, but I like his horse paintings best. And Géricault did many fine historical tableaux and portraits, but curiously, I gravitate toward his horse paintings.

I invited myself on this personal tour when Philippe came to Connecticut to ride me. I usually don't allow riders, but I did this time because of our mutual interest in art. He and I, and his lovely wife, Edith, and Stargazer were miles away from the farm when he dismounted to admire the view. Edith and Stargazer had gone on ahead, so I took the opportunity to address him.

"Excuse me, Mr. de Montebello?"

He looked around. He didn't answer, and shook his head as if to dislodge something.

"Ahem...Mr. de Montebello? I just want you to know that I really admire what you've done with the museum." Philippe turned around in time to catch the last few words coming out of my mouth. When I'm talking to someone for the first time, I like him to see that I'm actually speaking, so I generally begin with an "ahem" to attract his attention. I continued, "I would love it if I could tour the museum someday when it's closed. You see, we horses, unlike humans, think in eight dimensions, and I often find we can offer an unusual perspective on the analysis and interpretation of art."

Mr. de Montebello was extremely kind and suggested a date several weeks hence. I thanked him and we rode off to find the others. As we rode, I sang a few choruses of "Oklahoma!" and he joined in for the last O-k-l-a-h-o-m-a spell-out.

Standing in the Impressionist gallery, all alone, I faced Renoir's great picture The Daughters of Catulle Mendès. I had never been a fan of Renoir, as most of his works lack a certain equestrianarianism. However, seeing the picture for the first time in all eight of its dimensions, I understood something about it, and all art in general. Just behind the rectangle of The Daughters of Catulle Mendès there was an invisible room, as wide and high as the painting, but extending into a space of multiple dimensions incomprehensible to humans and other non-equines. In this room was the machinery of the painting. There were silvery turning drums, connected to each other by wide rolling belts, suspended by block and tackle, and driven by an elaborate Power-train and piston system. This machinery was interlocked with not only The Daughters of Catulle Mendès but also Renoir's other, in my view, lesser paintings. I had a flash of insight that only a horse can have (no offense): the lesser paintings were required for the greater painting to exist.

I explained this to Philippe de Montebello, who listened politely and then took my picture.

Then I did a bold thing. "Is there anything you could do to help me get into the Museum of Modern Art today?" I asked. I thought that this wonderful dip into the past deserved a balancing visit in the present. He thought for a second and then a broad, almost sneaky smile came over his face. He said he would be glad to help, and he told me to just go on over and he would leave a pass.

I left the Metropolitan Museum of Art and headed south through Central Park to the Museum of Modern Art. I neighed cheery hellos to a few carriage horses, as I always feel sorry for them.

I entered the museum, where I was greeted by a stunned Agnes Gund, its dignified president. I realized that Mr. de Montebello had failed to tell her that I was a horse. I also realized that he had not told her the other important thing about me, as when I said hello and how much I was looking forward to touring the collection, she screamed and ran away. Knowing I could straighten matters out later, and with pass in mouth (the guard never looked up), I headed up the escalator to one of the greatest collections of modern art in the world, with the exception of the cowboy museum where Trigger is stuffed.

My first stop was Picasso's influential masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a daring and still vital painting that changed the course of art. It was painted in 1907, and then Picasso put it away. Not many people knew about this pivotal picture until 1915, when Picasso hauled it out and sold it. When it was finally shown, all the Futurists, Cubists, and modernists realized they had been influenced by a painting they had never seen. Which was perfect for the times.

I moved on through the Bracques and Rousseaus and more Picassos and passed through a room with nine Matisses, stopping in front of painting by Jackson Pollock. Seeing these pictures in all their eight dimensions revealed to me the secret of modern art.

Before I reveal to you the secret of modern art, I would like to talk to you about Lily, the mare in the pasture next to mine. Lily can't talk, only I can; but she doesn't have to. Her wisdom far exceeds mine, and I love to watch her think. She will stand and look at me, scratch a hoof into the ground, and breathe out with a purr. She will clop over to me and touch her nose to mine, and I become so focused on her that nothing else exists. I want her to bring her mouth up to my ear and tell me she loves me, but she cannot speak. I would love to arrange the letters in her name to spell out mine, but they won't.

Lily.

And now for the secret of modern art. Unlike the paintings at the Metropolitan, these modern paintings had an entirely different structure in their six unrevealed dimensions. These paintings were not connected to one as significantly as the Renoirs were. They were connected instead to one force-unifying, mysterious, and dark. Even the delicately colored translucent Matisses drew from this swirling waterspout of gods and demons. In a flash of horse sense, I understood that before Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, paintings were explicable, and after it, they were inexplicable.

In Géricault's outside The Raft of the Medusa, which hangs in the Louvre (no, I didn't go to Paris; I saw it on the Web), a great painting in spite of the fact that it is offensively horseless, the essence is clear: an adventure tale, with political implications, that reaches toward the gods. But in the 20th century, the narrative, the political implications, and the gods have been relegated to the other dimensions and have been replaced with enigmatic marks. And while Géricault's goals were evident, and his narrative understood, and his technique meticulous, Pollock, for example, created an imprecise representation of a narrative that he did not understand.

Which is exactly what a dream is. And so there I stood, my four legs planted firmly on the floor, tail a-swish, understanding that the entire history of 20th-century art has been dreamlike, and that you humans have been given a hundred years of art whose meaning can be interpreted but never known for sure. Then, I defecated. In the horse world, this can be quite a compliment.

Night fell, and I thanked everyone involved and got on the train back to Connecticut. There was a smoker in my car, which bothered me, and I politely asked him to put his cigarette away and he did, but fast. Finally home, I loped out to pasture, my head full of thoughts, and I saw Lily standing broadside, in all her dimensions, staring up at a few clouds moving across the moon. I snorted to let her know I was there, and she came slowly over to me, and I told her about my day. She nuzzled me, which was a sign of approval, and I did something I had never done before, I boldly kissed her on the mouth. She looked at me as if to say, "...Why, Toby," and she coyly backed away and continued staring at the moon. I realized that my day's pilgrimage into the museums had sparked me to pursue my own little narrative with Lily, the one with the unknown ending.


* From ARTNews, April, 1999, pp. 108-109.