Art Schmart

At around lunch time today, I went to the Metropolitan Museum in Manila with some people who used to be in my carpool. I didn’t even know the Philippines had a Metropolitan Museum until Lisa, one of my carpoolmates, said she took a job there after graduating last March. Anyway, Lisa gave us a tour of the small, two-storey building, and I tried my hardest to be really into the paintings. I mean, although some of them had interesting stories –told in Lisa’s lively manner–they all looked like the same portraits, the same carabaos and coconut trees to me. Nothing really stood out; nothing looked like something I’d want to put on my walls if I were rich enough to buy any of them. That’s pretty much how I see most art.

I say “most art” because there is one painting I do love and intend on buying someday–LeRoy Neiman’s Portrait of a Black Panther. Now this is art. I saw it at an art gallery in San Francisco and I swear, it was love at first sight. The colors are vivid and beautifully blended together but best thing I like about the painting is that the panther seems to have its own personality. When I looked into its eyes I could see the fire and determination in them. The picture above–it looks like crap compared to the real thing.

There are only 450 copies of Portrait of a Black Panther, so I guess they must all be sold by now. The gallery I went to was selling it for $4000–cheaper than a diamond ring but still way too expensive for me. Even if my parents could pay for it I wouldn’t want to get it using their money. Someday I’ll be rich enough–by my own merit–to be worthy of buying the Panther.