In my travels I've had the good fortune
to stand before some of the world's great art.
But a road that has led to Paris and Rome
began long ago with a humbler start.
Volume P - The World Book - page twenty eight -
This is where my journey began
when I opened the volume to "Painting" -
fifty pages of Van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin.
My world was a blue collar neighborhood
when my father bought me the World Book set.
With a gold-gilt encyclopedia
he gave me the way to cast out my net.
I saw turbaned men on a lion hunt,
ladies with parasols strolling the park,
a circus ringmaster cracking his whip,
Van Gogh's swirling stars lighting up the dark.
As innocents fell to a firing squad,
I learned from Goya the horrors of war.
Through the peasants in Daumier's carriage,
I first encountered the life of the poor.
In Picasso's guitarist, bathed in blue,
I felt my own grief growing more intense.
In El Greco's landscape, raw emotion -
In Cezanne's still life, simple elegance.
One hundred-eight paintings extended my world
beyond anything I imagined could be.
My father, a steamfitter, opened the door -
This book one small part of his legacy.
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Author Notes
In 1960, my father bought me this encyclopedia, the deluxe edition, no less. It was a year after my mother died, hence my reference to how Picasso connected with my grief. My dad doted on me, showing off my report cards to anyone who would look. Sometimes this embarrassed me back then, but at a time when many girls were still taught their futures lay in becoming housewives or maybe secretaries, my father always thought I could be President. I still love art and have now seen many of the paintings in this encyclopedia article in person, and I still have Volume P though the rest of this ancient set has long since been thrown out. Some gifts our parents give us go way beyond the money spent.
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