https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438817
Fourth Sister – 12/14/20
…she had told him she did not like foo-foo, never had, not as a girl or teenager and definitely not now. He said this was not foo-foo, or phoo-phoo, or however you wanted to spell it, but here now before her was a big foo-phoo, classified and masquerading as “great art”, whatever that was, and he said, “Just observe it for a while. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Yes, she thought, as if he has ever been able to do anything in just a few minutes, which, well, taking more than a few minutes…was not always bad for her…true. She smiled. So… She looked at the painting. Her eyes moved quickly here and there upon its surface, just a stupid ballet class of stupid girls, not even worth a few minutes of her expensive time, for the girls… Her eyes began to pause here and there, as if her eyes were adjusting to the light of the dim room…as if her eyes stopped with a will separate from the control of her fine business-trained mind, as if… Her eyes began to stop without the permission of her…just without permission. The girl in the front, her back to dancing, the practice, her head down, what was that upon her face? The music stand…what was the melody, the music, unused it seemed for no musician was before it, abandoned, unused…ah, was that also upon the face of the girl of the red rose in her hair, as someone tied her costume, and the other, the one whose back was also to the class, did they already sense unused and… And the girl behind, thoughtful or biting her nails? The old man, slightly frail it seems, watching the practice for…precision, yes, and yet his age, his eyes…was he watching with memories of his own dancing, years and years ago…or was there something else from years and years ago, but also now faded and departed, never to return, his memory his only companion, but one saying, “adieu” more and more each day. And the girls against the opposite wall, what to make of them? And the reflection in the mirror, the young girls there already ghosts, the Parisian scene, dreary like a winter, the winter where the girls had come from and to where many will return, unused or used… Again…she was glad he always took more than just a few minutes…
This is a classic very famous painting. I have seen it reproduced in many places. Ballet is a form of ethereal art and athleticism. It has inspired millions. I am not sure why anyone would not like this painting. But then again. I will never understand Picasso and his unusual art form. As a former ballerina, anything to do with ballet to me is sacred.
The postcard stories are fiction, though it is true that some of the characters in the stories who are actually engaged with the art (as opposed to the art of the postcard providing the physical venue of the story) are sometimes not quite enthused with what is before them. But even in these stories, the art does provoke thought or emotions or both within them, which I believe is an essential and blessing of great art.