Kaywin Feldman and the National Gallery of Art Girl Scouts
Entering the Kaywin Feldman National Gallery of Art, East Building, that crooked, unfriendly museum that hides art in closets and exposes visitors to a Piranesi-like prison, you will notice two little light-boards near a gaping bulwark beneath a threatening metal sheet along an ominous leaning wall. And here, vulnerable children are encouraged to scribble on a screen their naive imaginings.
As you will expect, one little boy pictured the typical house, mother, father, child, path, tree and happy sun in that innocent style common to seven year olds. On the other screen, a little girl was dissuaded from picturing the happy family, was encouraged to scratch and scribble without purpose or meaning. This second drawing was typical of Progressive art though more honest in expression, showing itself superior to the very expensive Miro fastened to the nearby stone wall.
Why Kaywin Feldman, diversity hire, Director of The National Gallery of Art, would expose the absurd nonsensical scribbles of Progressive art I cannot in certainty say, though I can say that Americans should stop buying tasteless cookies and deprive Ms. Feldman of her allowance.
Nearby the children’s scribbles and the adults’ impertinences is one of three gift shops that you will find in every glassy airport and blank-walled mall. And here, fashion, mannequins draped up in stoles and art-print dresses, high-heels and purses. Here too, baubly jewelry, trinkets, crayon colored journals and cute pencils. The whole lit by fairy-lights that seem to twinkle, washed by white wall-lights too clean to be healthy.
Between one shop and another, a New Age’y people-mover that seems to be a misplaced Star Trek movie set. This second shop was once a bookstore suitable to the scholar, serviceable to the student, and intriguing to the typical visitor. Then, books by the thousands on every method, technique, and period of history and art. Now, some few books organized by Progressive theme, as is found in the typical leftist, Marxist bookstore. And here, at The National Gallery, as you will expect, instruction on what and how to think, those books forward placed on Feminism, women’s lives, the occult, and Race, each in stacks of pretty girl colors, the topmost tilted to force its opinions upon you.
The third shop, next to the sweets café is a ladies’ shop with all the trinkets that persuade coins and cards to leave purses and pocketbooks. When I visited in late January 2023, some few good fellows stood next to their girls, patiently. There were no male shoppers, but there were females in abundance fingering, testing, observing, being seen, each in the gathering way of women. Yes, I remember when once these shops were equal in men, each man engaged in some book, its knowledge, wisdom, or picture. No more; there might have been a tie-rack, though in passing I did not see one, though I expect there were, you know, of those feminine ties that a girl will buy for her boy, a tie that for embarrassment boys seldom wear around other boys.
In the galleries above the shops and cafés, the great achievements of Classive Civilization, the pictuary and statuary which is our nation’s treasure. Next to the greatest, richest of these treasures, the lady curators’ glamour shots looking alike advertisements on the real-estate page of your local paper, each lady pictured above her sale item. Here, at The National Gallery of Art, next to the gilded picture, a coiffured curator, and below the coiffured curator, didactic instructions and a SKU which scanned will deliver to your device the Progressive narrative, a few interesting biographical details, and the occasional, useful observation.
In all, the National Gallery of Art has become an impertinence common to thirteen-year-old girls. For the most part, I buy their cookies, especially if the girl is a neighbor, niece, or daughter. I shall not buy the cookies of these girls who sticker themselves on walls next to great pictures by Leonardo, Raphael, and whomever else they can sticker themselves to. Impertinence. Vanity. Superciliousness. Kaywin Feldman, our nation’s treasures are not baubles on your necklace, trinkets that you might finger and play. For some brief time, greatness is in your fingernailed care. Be humbled that you might be worthy. Be respectful, or leave.
The Kaywin Feldman National Gallery of Art
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image credits, M. Curtis
