In a recent post on WestEndTalk, the blog of the West End Gallery, artist Jeff Perrault wrote about how a piece of art is best seen when viewed under the proper conditions and the proper setting– framing was the point of his article. Without the correct frame, a fine piece of work can sometimes be overlooked.
He cited a social experiment done by a Washington Post reporter, Gene Weingarten, back in 2007, one that I had missed. In the experiment, one of the great violinists of our time, Joshua Bell, showed up on the Metro platform at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington. He was as shown in the photo here, in a long-sleeve T-shirt and a baseball cap. Nothing denoting his stature as a musician. Well, maybe the $3.5 million Stradavarius he was playing was a giveaway but who among us would have noticed? I mean, jeesh, the thing doesn’t even have a decal on it.
So there he was with his violin case on the floor in front of him, open and waiting for the money to start pouring in. He started playing selections of Bach. Part of the experiment involved him playing music that was extremely difficult, to show his virtuosity to the crowds. For 45 minutes, he played and at no point did he attract anything close to a crowd. The busy commuters rushed by, coffees in hand and cellphones at their ears, never noticing the extraordinary talent on display for free, far less than the $100 tickets often charged for his normal shows. Most people didn’t even glance his way, let alone stop.
It came down to context. Many of those folks scurrying by could have and would have appreciated Bell’s music had they heard it in a setting in which they were expecting the performance. It made me wonder about how many times I’ve passed by someting extraordinary simply because it was out of context, thus changing my perception of it.
I know this happens in a lot of cases. One of my favorites spots in NYC is the lobby of one the Equitable Center’s building, the one on the Avenue of the Americas. The three walls are filled with Thomas Hart Benton’s epic mural, America Today. It is spectacular, a celebration of the breadth of American life filled with motion and magnificent color. It never ceases to take my breath away. Yet, day after day thousands and thousands of people passby outside those windows and through the lobby itself, many never giving it a look.
Context.
I want to try to look beyond context and just see things as they are but it is difficult in this busy world. But I am going to try.
Redtree Times 
I first read Weingarten’s article when it was linked by another blogger about a year ago. It’s a truly astonishing piece about a remarkable experiment.
But even the smallest details of life can be no less extraordinary. About a mile from my house there are two orange construction cones on either side of something that seems important to someone. They’ve been there for weeks. A couple of weeks ago as I drove by I noticed a vine coming up through one of the cones. Last week it bloomed – a beautiful purple flower.
In that case, being “out of context” is precisely what added to its charm – and humor. And maybe that’s part of the creative task – to re-contextualize. Or, as Lawrence Durrell said in the Alexandria Quartet, “to re-work reality to show its significant side”.
Ah, the Alexandria Quartet! What a spectacular piece of writing! It as good as the written word gets. I read it quite a few years ago and have had it set aside for a re-read for some time now.