Winter. Think it, and if you're the romantic type, the world turns bright with snow that sparkles -- just as the snow in a Grandma Moses painting sparkles. It actually glitters, from glitter. You know, those decorative silvery flakes they sell in crafts stores. You can see them in the original paintings sprinkled over the trees and fields. And if you're still not sure, read the nameplate next to the painting that describes the medium as "Oil and Glitter on Canvas."
It surprised me to learn that Grandma Moses would enhance her winter scenes with glitter. She was truly an original. But what surprises me more about a Moses painting is all the people -- and all of them outdoors. Rather than country landscapes undisturbed by human activity, a Moses painting is swarming with men, women, and children. Out in the weather. In all the seasons, even winter. As though they belonged there. As though it was natural for them to be there among the hills and fields and flowers, and streams. Among the horses, cows, sheep, and turkeys.
In a Moses painting, the human race appears to be a busy outdoor species -- splitting and stacking wood, hauling pails of milk, plowing the garden, hanging clothes to dry, pitching hay,
The body, moving under its own power, is the most perfect engine on earth. It gives back in well-being what it does in work. Thus, Moses people appear to be healthy, convivial creatures who have a spirit for living. The poet Wallace Stevens writes:
What is there here but weather, what spirit
Have I except it comes from the sun?
Both Stevens and Grandma Moses convey in their art the idea that human creatures are closely connected with nature, that we are not only in nature but of nature. Granted, Stevens' lines are poetry, and fiction. And the paintings of Grandma Moses are in the primitive mode, and are unrealistic (there is no unhappiness and it never rains). Still, their view of a connected world is a true one.
The natural world is in us. We are composed mainly of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. We are fire and air and earth and water. We are a microcosm within the large, magnificent cosmic thing. We are that part of the cosmos that talks and sings and often wears colorful scarves. We fall in love, too.
From some reports, love happens outdoors mostly -- while ice skating, or taking a stroll on a country lane. My son proposed to his wife when they were hiking up a mountain trail. He had always known he loved her. But, he said, it was the way on that day she moved among the swaying pines as the sun filtered down on her that caused his heart to swell and the words to spill out.
In the legendary land of Camelot (as depicted in the popular musical) the noble knight is smitten, not by the queen as she sits on her velvet throne, but by the fair queen out in the weather. How can he leave his love in summer, he croons, when her hair is streaked with sunlight? Or in autumn, when she sparkles from the brisk, fresh air? And never, never in winter, he wails, when he beholds his royal darling running merrily through the snow. I think it is safe to say that the knight would not have been provoked to such a lyrical outburst had the queen spent her waking hours inside the castle where nary a sunbeam or summer breeze could work its magic on her.
All this would suggest that, in our efforts to make ourselves attractive to a mate, rather than take a trip to the hair salon or work out on an exercise machine, we simply become part of the landscape and let nature transform us into creatures worthy of love: Weed the cabbage patch and let the wind tussle our locks. Paddle a canoe and let the sun gild our biceps.
This week I am going snowshoeing with a new-found friend. We will be two clean-running engines traveling silently through a hushed and tranquil wood. It will be a beautiful way to spend the afternoon. And, if a ray of sun should fall across my face just right, or if he should move his limbs like the branches of an undulating pine tree ... Well, who knows what might happen?
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