life as understood

Everything echoes in the Asian wing of the Cantor Arts Center. Even with mountainous canvases lining the walls, all vocalizations bounce. Tsune has a hard time communicating over the phone in English, and I have to assume whispering will be similarly hard, but there's no other way.

He points out how the left gargoyle's mouth is open, unlike the one on the right. The slight asymmetry is immediately noticeable and almost jarring to the Western eye, but Tsune explains how the faces represent two separate but simultaneous invocations for the people entering the building. He can't remember what exactly--something like justice and mercy. Though I can't catch every word from his still, small voice, the article on wabi-sabi he printed off provides enough context for me to fill in the gaps. The intentional asymmetry demonstrates the Japanese man's healthy acceptance of his inability to reach perfection. It's in the pottery too. Obviously, I'm the one being tutored.

Another hour, and we've only seen a small fraction of the museum, so we agree to come back later in the week. Then, we'll traverse the Western wings and I'll do the explaining. As that day approaches, I'm apprehensive. I'm not an art historian. Tsune isn't either, of course--he's a visiting scholar in the computer science department. But he comes from a nation with a consistent, influential, and overall "rich" culture, and he has no trouble discussing it definitively, even in English. All I'm taught about my own people is that we're money hungry and fat. Innovative, maybe, but generally only at others' expense, and intolerant. When American and Western ways are spoken of, it's almost always derisively, as an impediment to human progress. What could I ever hope to teach a Japanese man about culture?

Two days later, torsos greet me at the entrance to the first European wing--perfect, granite male and female torsos on ionic pedestals, straight from ancient Greece. To one side, a portrait of a lower English nobleman, a medieval diptych of two saints, and a breathtaking painting of a fantastical palace with imaginative architecture, and lighting and perspective so perfect, it could be an extension of the museum. Tsune is speechless. I realize I can explain almost all of it, and without the help of any specialized knowledge. I teach him about classical influences, Renaissance humanism, and Catholic patronage, and the Bible. And it hits me that I am part of a unique tradition--the Western world is unique, even if it's huge--I've just never seen the forest for the trees.

In the Native American gallery, I don't have as much to say, but Tsune correctly surmises that the drawings, masks, and artifacts are closely tied with the belief systems of each specific people. There, under the brightly colored totem pole-arch, I am shocked by another silent, almost spiritual realization--that I belong also to far more unique and tight-knit subsets of Western culture by virtue of my specific geographic and religious backgrounds. We even have our own art. Most of it may not be museum-worthy, but an outsider could learn a few things about me from studying it. It's good to contextualize once in a while.

After a short time, I'm forced to take leave of Tsune and the museum, but he decides to linger. I walk out less alone than ever.