Eye of the Beholder
Alice Mattison reckons with the impacts of macular degeneration …
Rembrandt, self-portrait, 1660 (modified)
My mother thought children should visit museums, and back in the fifties, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was free. The Egyptian tomb was satisfyingly frightening if I pretended it was large enough to get lost in; a knight on a horse pointed a huge lance straight at me. I didn’t exactly get interested in art, but I picked up the notion that looking at it is something people do, something I could do. When I was old enough to take the subway from Brooklyn by myself, I went to museums alone. They were conducive to fantasy life. Or I went with friends. We knew museums had a snobbish distinction. I liked being someone who didn’t travel to Manhattan only to shop.
As a college student, I continued to live with my parents and sister in an apartment not big enough for everyone’s opinions. In museums, I could think alone in a warm place. I found the Frick Collection, also free. Soon my friends and I owned that imposing nineteenth-century mansion, and were annoyed when a painting was moved. We once walked through with
