Poor lighting can be hilarious...

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
-Henry Miller

The light was in good humor, is how I remember it. It could go either way. Like most tequilla-induced evenings, I am of two minds on it.

You know the way a room can be dark at night, and the shadows mellow evenly from corner to corner, so that nothing is too obvious or obscure? That is the signature of quality lighting. And we’d spent the afternoon staring at Sargent paintings at the MFA, Titian and the Flemish, with the light thrown on the figures like dropcloths, and definition and distinction in the visual arts are so depressing…

There was a wonderful Degas. In the foreground, an old woman sits with crossed hands. Her features are a miracle narrative, and you can read in the eyes—or in the lines around the eyes, or in the way they are set—how proud she is of her boredom, and how she insists on it. I believe she lived a good life. Probably, someone was sent to the market for her. She was probably one of these women who in their mid-twenties marry men fifteen years their seniors.





And I’ve heard her talk to her daughters. The thing is, my dear, that you avoid the unpleasantness of watching a man build his life, make decisions, doubt himself. You get to enter into the life of a finished and well-defined individual, and his pleasure is to avoid watching his girl watch him stumble, da-dee, da-dee.

She has a finished face, the old woman. The paint is crisp and the lines are deep, the shadowing more like a charcoal for a portrait to come. I wondered what the intention was, leaving the daughters off to the side, looking off to the side, and their faces smeared with a cloth, the features finished and then obscured? I wonder what they are thinking, although it probably won’t matter. The light was in good humor, I remember that much. What I mean is that it was dark, but it could go either way, I am of two minds on it.