Wanted: Two World Class Art Snobs

Last weekend my fiendish twin came for a visit. I had invited her up to DC for the day to view an exhibit of the works of one of our favorite artists, the nineteenth century Japanese printmaker, Hiroshige.

Since I live 10 minutes from the National Mall, I am a frequent patron at museums of all types, especially art museums. However, since the museums I generally frequent are Smithsonian museums (hence, free), I have somewhat of an attitude about paying to visit museums and galleries.

Fun Side Note: When I visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York last year, I raised such a fuss about being charged admission to the museum that they gave me the student discount just to shut me up. I was somewhere in the middle of a grandiose speech about the sacred responsibilities of guardianship of ancient and unique objects meant to be held in trust for the people of the world, when they practically threw the ticket at me and waved me into the museum.

The Hiroshige exhibit, unfortunately, was not being held at a Smithsonian museum. Rather, it was being held in one of the small, chic, self-conscious galleries that appear ten to a block in certain District neighborhoods. The cost of two tickets plus various surcharges (from a certain evil Master of Tickets, who shall remain nameless upon the advice of my attorney) came to $25. The posh look of this ritzy blog notwithstanding, my fiends, I am not made of money. However, since my sister and I both desperately wanted to see the exhibit, I forked over the money and we made our way into the gallery.

The exhibit itself was fantastic, and my sister and I were thrilled to see Hiroshige first editions up close. However, the gallery was packed, and not by the t-shirt-wearing, map-carrying, ice cream-eating tourist types who flock to the National Mall and the Smithsonians. Rather, these were Burberry-accessorized, Prada shoe-wearing, $250K per year art snobs. These are the people who spend their weekends patronizing fancy galleries, peering disdainfully at the artwork, and talking in snooty sounding artspeak. These are the kind of people who you may believe exist only on TV and in New York. But that's not true; they are real. They are really real

Now being the fiends that we are, my sister and I view such people as fair game. Therefore, we decided to go with the overused yet utterly appropriate philosophy of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." And since my sister and I were raised to believe that we can be the best at anything we set our minds to, we were determined to outsnob the snobs. So we raised our chins, pointed our noses upward, and became... ART FIENDS!

"Observe," I murmured, in my most blue blooded manner, while peering disdainfully at a print. "One can see the influence of eighteenth century Dutch traders in the Anglo-style rendering of the backdrop."

"True," replied my sister, in the frosty tones of a Rockefeller. "Yet the strong lines and concise proportioning of the foreground are reminiscent of early Edo-period woodcuts."

In this vein we murmured our way through the many rooms of the exhibit. We threw out artsy words and phrases that we had picked up various places, while having no idea of the actual meanings; words such as "chiaroscuro," "grisaille," "lavoro di intarsia," and "parsemage." By the time we worked our way to the end of the last room, the other art snobs in the gallery were backing away from us in confused fear and respect.

Mission accomplished! We had won! We had outsnobbed the snobs! We were fiends triumphant!