Now Mark and I go way back.  Back in 1965, the first winter I lived in New York, I worked at a Christmas job for American Photo, with offices and labs down on Seventh Avenue, next to Penn Station, Madison Square Gardens and all.  We were processing photos of kids on Santa's lap taken from around the country in malls and department stores.    I had just settled in at 1773 First Avenue, between 91st and 92nd Street.   I met some guys that were going to Photo school, (New York Institute of Photography, or NYI) through a fellow  who was moonlighting at  American Photo.  Mark was one of those I met, just back from Vietnam, and getting on with his life.  He was the most accomplished photographer among the ones I got to know, and a quiet and thoughtful soul.  Good looking and intelligent.  He lived close by, and I met him through his loud talking room-mate, a bumptious, opportunist sort, up to no good.  At least he did one good thing for me!

    Anyway, we became friends, and he tought me a lot about photography.  He left the city for Germany for a while.  His girl friend was from Stuttgart.   The affair ran its course and later he came back to New York.

    Now days, he is married some 18 years, to a great New York lady, Sonia, living in Mt. Vernon, just north of NYC, and photographing for the Bronx Zoo, and all the other zoos and acquaria in the city.  Now, after 25 years, and  portfolios of terrific photographs of animals, Mark was about to have a show of his work, appropriately enough at the Central Park Zoo.  This retiring and introspective artist was having pre-stage fright.   Stomach with bugs and butterflies as near as I could tell.  But he met me at the station, and took me to his house on the hill.  Solid and beautiful with stained glass in the hall and around the front door.  A house built in solid high style of the 20's, showing ideas from Frank Lloyd Wright, and other style leaders of the day.  Practical and sturdy, with lots of high ceilings and comfortable space, built for people with big families, comfortable salaries.  Folks that like their space, and the feeling of solidity and permanence.   There home is beautifully furnished, with understated elegance.  


     I had visited there in 1993 on a swift weekend in May, and had forgotten some of the details.  Then, his daughter, Erica, was about five, and son Peter was only a year, or there bouts, kicking in his stroller.  Now,  Erica is in her beautiful teens, tall and glowing with that bloom of beautiful youth God lets us enjoy in those days.  (We usually do not enjoy it so much,  with all the other things that come with adolescence!)   And Peter is a chess terror at age nine.  A contender of precocious strength and wonder.

       Mark showed me my quarters,         (Peter let me share his room,  promising not to put his snake in my bed.) Mark then dismissed his maid and proceded to roast some chicken for dinner.   Made some great mashed 'taters too.  Sonia came home, and let me check my e-mail on her computer, installed in the cool solarium, just off the kitchen. I proceded to crash, but not burn, the computer.   Peter beat me in a game of chess.  Then we ate. Yum yum.


        Mark also showed me how to use the Nikon Coolpix I borrowed from Istvan and Sister.  He  had one just like it, and gave me some cool tips. We then watched the "Antiques Road Show", that PBS series where people bring in their treasures to be appraised.  The show comes from a different city each week.
   
        After Peter showed me the snake, and beat me in yet another game of chess,  it was bed time.  Mark was planning to stay home and nurse himself, Sonia, to take the kids to school, and go into the city.  To her job.   She is in law, her office is in mid-town, near MOMA, Grand central, and all.  I was to go in with her on the train.

        I fell asleep between Peter in his twin bed and the snake in her acquariam.  How normal and grand, this old bohemian never with a family of my own, the old hermit on the hill, getting this taste of how people are supposed to behave and live.  I slept like a baby.  Awake every four hours.

    As usual, after a few hours, I was awoke and was ready to get up.  Everyone was sleeping so I took my shower and walked around the place, picking up on the great news that the noble Senator from Vermont changed parties, and throwing that legislative body over to the Democrats.   Thank God.  I hate Republicans.  How wonderful.  The honeymoon is just about over.

        Finally, after a bowl of cerial with the kids, we were off in the rain.  Oh yes,  it is the East and it was April.  Said good-by to Sonia until later,  at Grand Central, and made my way by subway on up to 78th Street and the Met.  What a glorious place.  What a grand repository of some of the world's greatest art!  There is the Louvre in Paris.   There is the Vatican in Rome.  There is the Prado in Madrid.   There is the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

To the Met!

       And here in New York City, there is the METROPOLITAN MUSUEM OF ART.




        Besides the Vermeer/ Delft show I was mainly interested in, there was in addition,  as you can see from the banners, the wardrobe and other effects of Jacqueline Kennedy and the tresures from Basel.   Most folks were headed for Jackies treasures, but there were plenty going in to see the Vermeer.  A pretty long line.  And flocks around the ones by the master himself.

         But the amazing thing about the show was the many artists that were working in that town then.  We learn a lot.  There is a new church and an old church.  Much goes
on in Dutch churches, it seems.  They seem to have social and political importance just as much as the town hall.   A lot of documentation paintings, drawings, and engravings are presented showing the life in the 17th century berg.  We see paintings by artists that Vermeer must have known, completly new to me.  Artists like Christiaen van Couwenbergh and Willem van Vliet show the diversity of and range of subjects and styles popular in those times.

       It is often pointed out that the particular attention to detail, especially to fabrics and jewelry, was done to please the wealthy patrons whose business was importing and selling fine cloth, and such luxury items as jewels.  But the upper classes were not the only ones represented.   Van Vliet is represented here with some genre peasant pieces, done with Caravaggio-like intimacy, the light sourse often being a lantern or candle in the middle of the scene, and half length figures around a table,  "The Supper at Emmaus" being a fine example.  

        We see Ter Borch paintings of women in interiors, which were admired by Jan and one lady, whose ski-slope nose marks her as possibly the same model for both artists.  Interesting contrast, almost mirror image.   "Woman at her Toilet" by Ter Borch and Vermeer's "Lady with a Pearl Neckless" show are nearly so.  Another painter who was around and appealed to me was Leoneart Bramer, a prolific artist who had that mysterious dark imagination going for him.  He was especially good depicting drama and action, had a fine way with gesture.   His use of chariascura, that dramatic lighting that Caravaggio gave the world, and Rembrandt and many others took to heart in Holland, is exciting and beautiful.  Why have we not heard more of this painter?  So many greats get lost in Art History.   (I must do some research!)