Museum Piece

Art has no loyalties, no special tie to one alone. Art, said Henri, is a gypsy over the face of the earth and may be, for a time, at home anywhere: in Greece, with the painter painting grapes so luscious that birds flew to the canvas to peck at them, and the sculptor with a cow so true to life that bulls were seen to come and make advances; in China, with a painted cat that drove away the rats - and everywhere, with Madonnas whose faces reflected the ones that the artist saw each day in his own land. Art is no homing pigeon, but a wanderer with no ties anywhere, never possessed by one and one alone, and yet, in its own way, true enough to any and to all.