Feel the World Shake?

I looked out my bedroom window at the two cats waiting for breakfast in the meager shelter on my deck below. I wished I could bring them inside but I'm told by reliable sources that bringing feral cats into the house never really ends well. I suppose it might be different if they were kittens but they aren't of course. They're first cousins to Eddy, that miniature panther that gave us the idea for Happy Cats Wellness and he's almost 7 now.

But it wasn't cats that filled my thoughts this morning. It was fine art. I'd recently had a close encounter with the stuff and was still reeling from it. Napoleon must have felt the same way when his aide reported that Nelson had just sailed into Cairo Harbor and set fire to the French fleet. 

Ms Wonder is an artist, of course. You don't need reminding of that. You've been here through the thick and thin of art gallery galas and whatnot, so you're well aware of her photographic talent. I thought she might be able to enlighten me on the reason for a certain motif--one that, so far, had eluded me.

"Poopsie," I said, getting right down to it, which, as you well know, is the Genome way. "Why the reclining nude?"

She stopped splashing and sloshing, an activity she seems to enjoy when submerged in the bath. Her face took on a familiar questioning look, which told me that I'd gotten her attention. So good so far.

"Did you say, nude?" she asked.

"Nude is what I said. Reclining to be exact. It's a common motif in the art world. The first one, I'm told, was done in 1510 by a Venetian painter named Giorgione, although I read yesterday that some scratchings, found on cave walls in Spain, are actually 40,000-year-old reclining nudes. So you see, it's a popular subject for artists. I don't suppose you've ever photographed any? Reclining nudes, I mean."

She frowned at that and shook the noodle as though warding off a swarm of no-see-ums. She has a particular dislike for those. I'm not sure why.

"What about reclining nudes?" she said.

"Exactly!" I said, "Just what I want to know! What about them? We seem to be deeply connected to the unclothed female form lying on a bed."

"And when you say, 'we', you mean men, of course."

"You wouldn't have these shallow views if you were familiar with Fernando Botero's work."

"Who?"

"A painter who spoke out, if I can use that term, against the deplorable human rights conditions in his native Columbia. He was able to paint the most troubling scenes that somehow didn't turn us away but invited us to look and consider."

"And these troubling scenes included reclining nudes?"

"No, no!" I said. "No, the nudes were something different. One of them sneaked up on me yesterday at Dulce Cafe. The owner, Carlos, is a native of Columbia and admirer of Botero and has a print hanging in the cafe. It's a painting called 'The Letter' and that work is surrounded by mystery. Art historians and scholars wonder who the subject was and what the letter was about."

"And the mystery subject is a reclining nude woman?" she asked.

"How many paintings of a reclining nude man have you seen?" I asked. It wasn't one of my better comebacks so I wasn't surprised when she ignored the question. 

"It seems you've researched the subject well," she said. "What are you thinking?"

"Never mind what I'm thinking, Poopsie. What are these art historians and scholars thinking? That's the question I ask myself."

"I'll bet you have a theory," she said, and let me just pause here to say how happy it made me to know that she was allowing me to drive the conversation for a change.

"First of all," I said, "these historians and art scholars are too deep in the status quo. They see a woman in a painting and fall too quickly into the Mona Lisa Syndrome."

"Mona Lisa Syndrome," she repeated.

"That's right," I said, "the MLS is that comfortable niche where they wax eloquent about mystery and whatnot. It allows them to write all sorts of bilge."

I paused to give this opinion more thought because I was impressed that I'd come up with this insightful nugget. It doesn't happen often and on those rare occasions, I like to appreciate the experience fully. For her part, nothing more was said and I was allowed to continue.

"There is no mystery," I said. "It should be clear to the meanest intellect, that the woman represents the nation of Columbia, reclining in spartan surroundings, and saddened because her lover--and by lover I mean the citizens of her country--don't enjoy the comfort of her arms and her bed. Love is absent. Only loneliness and the estrangement of the spirit, which is represented by that mysterious letter."

There was a quiet moment during which I waited again for her reply. Again, there was only silence. But she had a look on her map that caused me to think she'd taken my remarks in a big way. There was something definitely going on behind those eyes. I began to feel like one of those orators who incite mobs to action. Not one like Trump but rather one like Thomas Payne.

"What are you thinking?" I said.

"Just wondering," she said, "if there's something I could do with my photography to speak out in support of people in Ukraine or Palestine. Like the way Botero speaks out about the struggles in his Columbia."

"Many people are struggling in the world," I said. "And we live in the land of opportunity--even though many in this country struggle too. It does seem that we could be doing more to help others."

"The good I would do, I do not," she said. 

"Very well put," I said, "One of your own is it?" 

"Saint Paul," she whispered, which got right over my head but I realized from the whisper that she was deep in meditative thought and not to be disturbed.

"I'll go feed the cats," I said, "they're waiting in the rain." As I walked downstairs, I had the feeling that the world had just changed. And I'm sure Napoleon must have felt the same at one time or another in his career.