What pleasure to walk into the Art Institute of Chicago
after such a long gap and meet so many old friends. I only had some forty
minutes there, so I concentrated on their fabulous collection of impressionists
and post-impressionists ‒
the many wonderful Monets among them, together with the stunning “Sunday on La
Grande Jatte” by Seurat.
It really is one of my favourite art museums in the world.
But the great surprise, new to me, was a case of small bronzes, tucked away it seems, grotesque busts by the French nineteenth century
graphic satirist, Honoré
Daumier. Politicians, writers, artists, friends. They are all there, seemingly
caught at their most vulnerable, complacent, energetic, sleepy, self-important and so
on.

