Christmas is when many of us spend more time standing in lines at the post office than any other time of the year. Have you ever wondered about those postal clerks and the passions of their private lives?

One of the most famous postal clerks in America right now (though retired) is a guy named Herbert Vogel, who, along with his librarian wife, Dorothy, amassed an art collection so extensive that they were able to give 2,500 of their works to 50 institutions around the country — one in each state.

The Portland Museum of Art hosted a successful exhibition of some of the Vogel collection in the fall. Now it’s time for part two, on view through Jan. 29.

If you’re not a fan of the subtle gestures of contemporary conceptual art — the often gritty guts of the New York art scene — there’s a good chance this show will have little appeal for you.

However, the scope of the Vogels’ gift to our nation is virtually without peer, and the expanded turf it adds to the PMA is undeniably impressive. It’s a great gift, and Christmas is a wonderful time to think about gifts, generosity and public sharing.

While many Americans see contemporary art as elusive and unnecessarily complex, the same can be said of cutting-edge art through the ages, including the centuries of art guided by Christian culture. My favorite painting in the world — Pontormo’s “Deposition” in Florence’s Santa Felicita — is an altar piece depicting Jesus being removed from the cross. It’s a masterpiece in part because it breaks pretty much every rule possible about space, color and logic.

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Confused? That’s the point. It’s an intentionally irrational piece meant to stir the emotions. It’s not supposed to be understood, but experienced. Confusion can produce powerful emotions: When I first saw it in person, I was moved to tears.

Just as much of the Vogel collection might strike you as strange and unfathomable, so Pontormo’s altar piece must have seemed to the Florentines who first saw it about 500 years ago.

Charles Clough’s “August Fifteenth” in the Vogel show is a swirling vortex of colors that immediately reminded me of Pontormo’s “Deposition.” No, it’s not even remotely in the same league, but I still like it.

Steve Keister’s suite of simple-seeming, looping drawings on graph paper might seem rather unimpressive at first glance. But if you consider them in terms of the artist’s process-oriented gestures against the insistently ordered logic of the grid, they start to exude a meditatively human presence.

Minimalism, one of the fort?of the Vogel collection, is about the literal experience of the here-and-now. While many consider it to be materially secular, for others the experience of self-awareness taps directly into spiritual perception. It depends on your own worldview, and there is no right or wrong answer.

You can see Richard Nonas’ “Two Down” simply (or maybe cloyingly) as a 2-by-4 on the ground, or you can take a moment and try to relate it to your own upright and bilaterally symmetrical body. A little open-minded patience just might reward you with a big surprise.

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One of my favorite pieces in the show is Rackstraw Downes’ “Disused Weather Station, Galveston, TX.” While I have hammered Downes in the past for being too bleak and pretentious, I love this beautiful little drawing of an abandoned place that was once used to predict the future.

Downes creates a lonely space past some forgettable and forgotten buildings by placing a few telephone poles throughout the horizontal landscape. It conveys a certain spiritual emptiness that reminds me of Calvary.

It also made me think of Ebenezer Scrooge, who so famously awakened from dark and lonely dreams to find the gift of joyous generosity.

So to the Vogels and everyone else who has given art to public collections in Maine, please accept my heartiest thanks.

You’re making our world a better place.

Freelance writer Daniel Kany is an art historian who lives in Cumberland. He can be contacted at:

dankany@gmail.com

 


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