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Rachel Cohen

Paint, paint, paint

Paint, paint, paint

El Greco, View of Toledo, ca. 1599-1600, Metropolitan Museum of Art, all detail photos Rachel Cohen.

On Monday, I went to the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time in six months. It was quiet; everyone had a mask. There were people with devices to check you in electronically and you were informed by text when there was enough space in the one exhibition that is drawing any kind of crowd. The atmosphere was reserved, cautious.

But the paintings.

El Greco, St. Louis King of France, and a page, Louvre Museum

El Greco, Fray Hortensio Félix Paravicino, 1609, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The paintings came pouring and leaping off the walls. The paintings were full of news and observations. The paintings had just left the Louvre and the Prado, and had come out of private homes for the first time in decades, had had the chance to be quiet together in their home in Chicago. They were busy conversing with one another. In the photos I took, and I took a great many, they spoke of humanity, struggle.

El Greco, Portrait of Antonio de Covarrubias y Leyva, about 1600, Louvre Museum

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Art Institute of Chicago

And of reflection.

El Greco, View of Toledo, ca. 1599-1600, Metropolitan Museum of Art, detail photo Rachel Cohen

Paul Cézanne, The Bay of Marseilles, Seen from L'Estaque, c. 1885, Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Lorrain, View of Delphi With a Procession, 1673, Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet, Vétheuil, 1901, Art Institue of Chicago

But mostly they returned to one subject, one of infinite interest and variation:

Paul Cézanne, Still Life, on display at the Art Institute of Chicago but not on their website

paint,

Louise Moillon, Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus, 1630, Art Institute of Chicago

Louise Moillon, Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus, 1630, Art Institute of Chicago

paint,

El Greco, St. Louis King of France, and a page, Louvre Museum

paint.

Monet, The Water Lily Pond, 1917-1920, Private Collection

Monet, The Water Lily Pond, 1917-1920, Private Collection
Monet, Water Lily Pond, 1917/1919, Art Institute of Chicago

El Greco, View of Toledo, ca. 1599-1600, Metropolitan Museum of Art, detail photo Rachel Cohen.

At the museum, it was delirious and quiet.