Morandi's tabletop theater

So, two consecutive posts sans opera, why not a third?

The other Met's show of Giorgio Morandi runs through December 14. While I know almost as little of art as I do of dance, I found it quite striking.

Others have seen him through the lens of minimalism or abstraction. Unsurprisingly, given this blog's preoccupations, I was both taken and surprised by the unmistakable dramatic element to many of his still lifes -- particularly those of the 1950s. There are no humans per se, but the forms -- bottles, small boxes, and vases -- there suggest present life on his lit tabletop stage.

The accompanying wall texts are (unlike Morandi himself) overwrought, but that's only slight distraction.