Most of the stuff in the National Gallery of Canada (up the street from our house and the art museum I know best) is interesting at one level or another, some of it is startlingly beautiful, and one or two pictures would never be safe from my thieving fingers if the place wasn't so full of bored security guards. But whether any of these items really rate as "art" -- well, that's a different matter.

One of the most famous items in the Canadian collection is a massive canvas about five feet wide and 15 feet high, upon which are painted three stripes: blue ones on either side and a red one down the middle. It is called "Voice of Fire" and the National Gallery was enormously proud to get it. I and my fellow tax-payers coughed up more than a million dollars for it. In my admittedly arrogant opinion, art it's not. Neither are most of the soapstone and ivory Inuit carvings the Canadian government likes to hand out to visiting dignitaries; most of them are interesting and some are beautiful, but art -- well, that's a different matter.

My idea of "art" is something that makes me feel as if I'm peeking into another world. This effect is easiest to achieve with pictures -- good ones are like looking through a window, or someone else's eyes -- but sculptures can do it, too. Did you ever get up close and personal with Sir Jacob Epstein's "Rock Drill?" Or something marble from ancient Greece? I'm a menace in art museums; I always want to stroke the sculpture and peer intimately at the paintings. Good ones are just as interesting up close ...

It's fartsy if, when I get up close, I don't like it any more.

charmion