The Good Painting

I can still remember the first time I saw Giovanni Tiepolo's The Banquet of Cleopatra. It was during a gallery tour with my HSC art class and I was mesmerised. The detail, the colour, the sheer magnificent size of the thing, learning that Cleopatra was fair-headed(!), and puzzling over her decidedly un-Egyptian dress.

I remember the guide explaining the painting: the story of the Queen threatening to dissolve one of her famous pearls in a glass of wine (I think) as a result of an argument (possibly) with Mark Anthony - the details are a little hazy some 20 years on.

Ever since, whenever I have wandered the gallery I invariably drift back towards The Banquet.

When my daughter was two-and-a-half, we spent a day in the city and the gallery was one of the places I knew I wanted to take her. After all, she loved painting and I couldn't wait to see how she reacted to being surrounded by so many paintings, a good number of them many times larger than her.

The dimly lit labyrinth containing early Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures caught her attention first but she quickly decided that a bowl was just a bowl and a vase was not nearly so interesting without sweet-smelling flowers inside. The concept of mummification was something I didn't want to go into and so we moved on.

When we reached the cavernous room containing the 18th century paintings, she was suitably thrilled - although more with how much space there was to run than with the pieces adorning the walls.

"What do you think about this painting," I asked, guiding her towards Tiepolo's masterpiece. She stood like a little button in front of the two-and-a half-metre-high painting - exactly her age, but in metres.
"Good," she answered simply. I tried again.
"Isn't it gigantic," I exclaimed.
"Yes."
"Isn't it colourful," I prompted.
"Yes."
I made one last attempt. "So what do you think about it?"
"It's good," she said.

Quite right. And until she's accumulated her own ideas about Egypt (which may or not include black bobbed wigs and the Bangles), what else needs to be said?

by guest: Julie Pugh