Piece of Work Piece of Art (FF)

copyright Douglas MacIlroy

“I was and still am her greatest work!”

"Sure, we've heard it all before, Seaside Contours," responded Pastel Princess wearily.

"Multiple times," added Sculpture of a Young Ballerina.

"And now they’re breaking up the collection, I with my sensuous mustache and alarm clock eyes am headed for MoMA! The Big Apple!"

"We know," sighed Pastel Princess.

"Where you going, Pastel?"

“Baltimore Museum of Art.”

"Baltimore? Great town if you like muggings! You, Sculpture?"

"Philly Museum of Art."

"Philly? Run up the steps you’ve seen the whole place!

"Psst, Sculpture:  Don’t worry, that piece of work is not just going to MoMA!”

"No?"

"He's going into storage at MoMA. He'll have nobody to yak to for 75 years!"

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Not all art is ennobling. I took one look at this week's prompt and saw a very obnoxious piece of art with a handlebar mustache and a mouth that never shuts.  If you're going to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, make sure he's safely tucked away in the basement before you venture forth.

Very ennobling, however, are the offerings of the other Friday Fictioneers, works of art all. Enable the ennobling by clicking here.

Oh, hello, Seaside Contours, what are you doing at my house?  OMG, willed to whom?!!! 

The Masters' Room (FF)

"It's breathtaking!" raved Mrs. Heinz Cavendish, patron of the arts.

"Truly brilliant!" exclaimed her good friend Bryce Chadwick. "No wonder the artist's work is on special display this month here in the Masters' Room."

"And you're not going to believe who painted it," said Mrs. Cavendish. "Perry Block!"

"Perry Block? The third rate humorist?  Impossible!"

"I always thought he was just an idiot too," said Mrs. Cavendish, "but several people have told me he painted everything in this room."

"Oh no, Mrs.Cavendish," replied Bryce. "They don't mean the paintings."

"No?''

"They mean the walls, ceilings, and blotchy woodwork!''

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No, I'm not an artist and even "paint by numbers" is too much for me, but I did create one masterpiece this week --- a Friday Fictioneers entry based upon the prompt above which came in at a "by the rules at last" 99 words.   Hey, I may cut off my ear in celebration!

To take a self-guided tour of the great works of the many other Fictioneers, buy your ticket here and pick up the little museum tag you've got to wear. Don't lose it because if you leave the premises you won't be allowed back in without it.

And, after all,  you don't want to miss the great painting in the Masters' Room!
  

The Halo Effect

Mother, put those boobs away!  I'm already too wise & saintly for them. 

I have always been a big fan of European Medieval painting.

Back in those days you didn't just set up shop as a painter and decide to paint still lives, a couple of dogs sitting around playing poker, or a jump-suited Elvis in concert on velvet 

You painted Jesus.  

You painted Jesus with a total lack of artistic perspective and depth, with the infant Jesus looking like a shrunken adult about to present his graduate level dissertation at Brandeis, and always adorned with a humongous disc about his head and shoulders that looked like a golden Frisbee on steroids.  

That humongous disc is more commonly known as a halo.

Just about every painting of Jesus and his mom shows them both packing halos so large the back of their necks seem likely to sustain third degree burns.  One can't be sure if those who followed the Star of Bethlehem to check out the baby Jesus were enthralled that he was the Messiah or aghast at the preternaturally enormous halo he'd been super-endowed with.

The same is true of paintings of Jesus and his disciples. All of them are rocking halos!  How did that work?  Were the disciples all born with halos just like Jesus, or did Jesus hand out a halo to each newbie as they joined up?

The Halo Effect in paintings of the Medieval and Early Renaissance periods raises many fascinating questions, all of them blasphemous. I believe these questions can be boiled down to an essential three:

1) Did Jesus actually appear in life with a halo?  If so, why didn't everyone follow him and how screwed are we Jews today?

2) What of those people who don’t have halos?  Are they evil, just common folk, or did they leave them in their other tunic? 

3) Do halos require cleaning and polishing?  If so, is there an over-the-counter product? Must you clean a small area in the back first to make sure there's no staining? 

I'll defer the answers to these questions to wiser heads than mine, all of which probably possess halos. But wouldn’t it be great if halos really existed outside of medieval paintings? They could serve as handy guideposts to everyday life. 

 

If you were looking for a ruthless and unscrupulous ambulance-chasing attorney you’d be careful not to select a lawyer with a bright halo over his head. You’d want a scrapper, not a saint! If you want to get lucky in a singles bar, bypass even the hottest of women if they exhibit an orb so bright it practically blinds you.

But if you’re thinking of donating money to a worthy charity, the person in charge of the place better be sporting a halo the size of Connecticut.

And if you’re seeking a personal Messiah?

"I am the Messiah.  I am the Light.  I am ..."

"Hold it, buster!  Where's your halo?"

"Halo?  That's only in paintings."

“Then why does Tom Hanks have one?”

“Of course Tom Hanks has one!  I’m only the Messiah.”

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All right, guys, stop rubbing it in!