Liszt Ablaze, Stravinsky Explosive

Liszt Ablaze, Stravinsky Explosive
By Tom Wachunas

For sheer depth of instrumental virtuosity and soaring emotional impact, the inaugural performance of the 2011-2012 season by the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO) on October 9 was more than merely satisfying. This concert was an aural phenomenon of astonishingly lavish dimensions.

Maestro Gerhardt Zimmerman introduced to the audience American composer Margaret Brouwer, whose 1996 tone poem, Remembrances, began the program. She explained that the work was written after the death of Robert Stewart, a beloved friend who was himself a composer as well as a sailor. After the inspired performance, Zimmerman welcomed Brouwer back to the stage, and she was clearly pleased – with good reason - at what had just transpired.

Here was the CSO at its most evocative, deftly sailing, so to speak, through the score’s many sparkling textures and variable moods that powerfully conjured images of windswept seas, alternately soothing and achingly mournful. Most remarkable was the commanding finesse with which the orchestra navigated the score’s dramatically evolving and contrasting sound dynamics – from the very loud and solemn, and to the ultimately shimmering whispers of hope and affirmation. Throughout, particularly in haunting passages that suggested the rumble of looming storms, the brass section was sharp and utterly riveting.

What followed was surely among the most searing performances by a guest soloist in recent memory. Pianist Martina Filjak delivered a blazingly hot performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1, startling for both its vigorous lyrical thunder as well as its silky poeticism. In his program notes for the concerto, Kenneth C. Viant cited Austrian critic Moritz Saphir’s description of Liszt treating the piano as a mistress. Just so, on this occasion Filjak was the personification of Liszt’s impassioned relationship with the instrument, playing as if at once attacking and apologizing to a lover. Call it a tender savagery. But even in passages of the most furious and sturdy muscularity, she never succumbed to gratuitous bombast. Rather, her astounding virtuosity was purposeful, and always in seamless, balanced dialogue with the sonorous orchestra. Particularly magical – even wicked - were her sustained right hand trills that transformed the piano’s sound into otherworldly, harp-like resonances. When the bedazzled capacity audience lavished her with their loving ovations, she graciously responded with an equally magical encore of Schumann’s Intermezzo from Vienna Carnival.

The overarching theme of the evening was a celebration of Liszt’s 200th birthday, and so a second work by the composer – Symphonic Poem No.7 (Festklange) - filled in the program further. While the march-like, glimmering energy of Festklange (‘Festival Sounds’) might lack the heroism or gravitas of some of Liszt’s other symphonic poems (a genre he invented), it was nonetheless delivered here with towering, palpable exuberance. Once again, the brass section was exceptionally bright and crisp, along with notable solos from cello, bassoon, and violin. In all, the work set the tone for a concert finale as explosive as I’ve ever heard at Umstattd Hall.

The music for the The Firebird ballet electrified audiences when it premiered at the Paris Opera in 1910, and effectively thrust Stravinsky into worldwide celebrity practically overnight. The 1919 suite arrangement stands in many ways as Stravinsky’s recapitulation – summation, to be sure – of 19th century Russian orchestral opulence. It is unarguably a masterpiece of technical flamboyance and wildly varied, mesmerizing instrumental textures. Through all of the CSO’s thrilling mastery of this familiar gem, there was of course the anticipation of its stirring, iconic finale. Yet here the orchestra far exceeded such familiarity and somehow transcended the whole idea of exhilarating, victorious climax. This was a jaw-dropping, exuberant eruption of the first order. And more than just a joyous end to a singularly excellent evening, it heralded in glorious fashion the robust season to come.

Photo: Pianist Martina Filjak

Mattermorphoses

Mattermorphoses
By Tom Wachunas

Aegolius had worked himself into one of his famously flustered states. This was always the case whenever he visited an exhibit of what he called ‘postwhatsit’ art. “Well, I’ve never seen anything quite this,” he blurted, as usual, “…and, well, I mean anything I could call…” His whiny voice trailed off into indecipherable muttering.
Nyctea stroked his shoulder gently and, as usual, cooed, “Relax. It’ll come to you.”
After a few more minutes of nervous pacing and squinting at the strange works, a wide-eyed Aegolius finally screeched, “Metamatters and matterphors!”
And just as she had done countless times before, Nyctea nodded her agreement. “Perfect,” she said.
- From “Mournings of the Grebes” by June Godwit –


Despite his habitual worrying, Aegolius never failed to eventually unpack his trusty portmanteau. In the current postwhatsit exhibit at Main Hall Gallery on the Kent Stark campus, mixed media works by five women are gathered under the title “Pleasures of Matter.” Metamatters and matterphors indeed, the peculiar objects presented here are ‘pleasurable’ enough in their tactile intrigue, to the extent that we find pleasure in interpreting iconography that vacillates between things enigmatic, personal, and somehow familiar.

For example, the curious fabric floor constructions by Kortney Niewierski on one level conjure memories of childhood and stuffed animals. While there’s a bright, sculptural sensuality about them, their titles might refer to things less innocent if not repugnant, like accidental spillages or road kill. “I-77(North)” is a zippered fabric bag, eerily embryonic with little human fingers poking through the zipper. “I-77 (South)” is a furry deer carcass neatly sliced in two to reveal gaily patterned guts splayed on a patch of orangish “blood.”

More raw still are the pieces by Susan McClelland, who works with gut, sisal rope, and latex in producing visceral “systems” of materials that have been sewn together. Most of these works have the look of reconstituted natural detritus and otherwise organic growths, and are compelling in how they suggest processes of things damaged, then repaired and healed. The persistence of life after trauma.

A connection to nature is clearly evident, too, in the captivating small objects by Kate Budd. Her wax forms, looking like various types of pods and seeds, have been cut and buffed just so, then adorned with pins or tiny glass beads. Decorating the already decorous. Not that the wondrous shapes and textures found in nature cry out for any artificial embellishments on our part. But altering these forms in this manner becomes, on one level, a truly fascinating commentary on the human tendency to not leave well-enough alone or (best intentions notwithstanding) to augment what doesn’t need to be augmented.

The three impeccably crafted works by Isabel Farnsworth seem to be at once whimsically abstract and seriously thoughtful codes for private, emotional experiences. “The Sea Inside” sits very low on the floor - a table of sorts. The top is a resin-encased wooden cut-out of a supine figure completely covered with a blue pattern of ocean waves. Supporting this surface underneath is an arrangement of equal-sized compartments, each housing a huddled figure. Quietly somber. An elegy?

Resonating throughout many of the works in this collection is the sense that the artists have processed privately important objects or events – some pleasant and some uncomfortable - and fashioned them into deeply personal symbols. For Clare Murray Adams, those memories are rooted in domestic family life and a rural, womanly ethos. Her mastery of the encaustic medium (pigments suspended in beeswax) serves her well. Its variable transparency gives her assemblages of ghostly surface patterns along with objects on, or recessed into the picture plane - such as balls of yarn, fabric swatches, and spindles - a timeless, sometimes mysterious heirloom quality without turning them into merely saccharine mementos.

And like the other whatsits here, they’re wonderfully engaging material witnesses to intimate realities.

Photo: “I-77 (South)” by Kortney Niewierski, on view in the Main Hall Gallery at Kent State University Stark, THROUGH OCTOBER 28. Gallery hours are Mon. – Fri. 11am to 5pm / Saturday 10am to Noon.

A Species of Writing

A Species of Writing
By Tom Wachunas

“All good and genuine draftsmen draw according to the picture inscribed in their minds, and not according to nature.” –Charles Baudelaire-

“Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.” –Keith Haring-

Edgar Degas once defined drawing as “…the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing.” Drawing as language? If we think of writing as a way of processing and externalizing internal ideas via mark-making, we can reasonably apply Degas’ definition in appreciating a broad spectrum of visual drawing styles. And it is indeed a broad spectrum of media and styles that we see in a delightful exhibit, called “Pencil Me In,” at The Canton Museum of Art. The show runs concurrently with “A Nation Divided,” and features 51 drawings from the museum’s permanent collection, spanning the 19th to the 21st century.

Just as writing is a manipulation, or configuration of symbols that collectively express either abstractions (thoughts, ideas, feelings) or concrete representations of physical realities, so also two-dimensional drawing. Good drawing is certainly not limited to reproducing super-realistic, faithful-to-nature replicas of a subject.

But when an artist does accomplish masterfully complete illusions of reality, the effect is invariably wowing, and there are some stunning examples of that here. Among those are three elegant nude studies – masterpieces of soft precision in pencil – by John Hemming Fry, and the spectacular, lavish colored pencil and acrylic “Still Life with Silver Bowl and White Cup” by Jeanette Pasin Sloan. And then there's Lowell Tolstedt's astounding tromp l'oeil colored pencil "Great American Still Life..." An artichoke, green apple, and apricot sit atop a square of crinkled foil, and their reflected colors make for a shimmering gem of pure abstraction.

Of course the discipline of drawing can be a prelude to a project in another medium. No doubt the French Realist Jean Millet practiced the lofty tradition of making many charcoal sketches in preparation for his iconic paintings of the rural working class. There are three here – two loose and fluid studies of field workers, and the more charmingly refined, pastoral “Shepherdesses.” And for all of the sketchy airiness in Charles Burchfield’s “Cicada Spirit,” executed with child-like simplicity, the small drawing exudes a largely magical, meditative energy. Similarly, there’s an eerie magic and spontaneity at work in Will Barnet’s dramatic charcoal “Emily Dickenson.” The stark figure of a woman standing on a low, barren knoll, her back to us, is made all the more haunting and lonely by a massive sky filled not with clouds, but swarming blackbirds. Like many of the drawings in this show, it may or may not have been a preparatory study for a painting, yet it is a complete – and compelling – entity unto itself.

Speaking of compelling entities, perhaps the most remarkable offering here is “Impressions: Europe #26,” a conte crayon and ink work by George Kozmon, Jr. This architectural rendering is a powerful orchestration of tonalities both deeply saturated and subtly variegated, along with intricate, rhythmic linear design and rich textures. The drawing transforms a classically- styled building - presented from a refreshingly inventive perspective - into a fascinating homage to abstract pictorial structure.

And like all great drawings of things seen in “reality,” it rewrites the familiar into something very new and surprising.

Photo, courtesy cantonart.org, “Impressions: Europe #26,” conte crayon and ink on paper, by George Kozmon, Jr., on view through October 30 at the Canton Museum of Art, 1001 Market Ave. N., Canton. (330) 453 – 7666.

Then Sings My Soul

Then Sings My Soul
By Tom Wachunas

“The world will never starve for wonder, but only for want of wonder.” –G.K.Chesterton-

“Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson-

There have been moments in my life when I felt - standing with wordless wonder in the presence of mountains, or feeling my face gently slapped by wind-blown ocean water, or walking beneath the verdant, sun-dappled canopy of a towering pine forest – that I was actually in the mind of God. I’m fairly convinced we’ve all had such encounters at least one time or another – or should. I feel blessed to have had many.

Another blessing has been taking vicarious pleasure in Nature via the art of well-traveled photographers who seek out the pristine, transcendent grandeur of our physical planet. And so it is that in that same vein I feel blessed yet again to have seen the current exhibition of photographs by Portland, Oregon photographer Rick Canham, on view in both the Student Center and the Advanced Technology Center at Stark State College. His show is called “Brief Moments in Light,” and it is indeed, in a word, wondrous.

This magnificent collection of images demonstrates Canham’s 30 years of experience in purely seeing and framing the sheer power, vitality, and palpable grace of his subjects. Aside from his meticulous attention to color balance and print density, he doesn’t employ any digital trickery. Instead, he brings a painterly intuition to just the right time and place - drawing, so to speak, with light, texture, and sumptuous color. For Canham, this combination of disciplined eye, technical prowess (he does all his own color darkroom printing), and fortuitous timing has produced invariably breathtaking declarations of his clear reverence for, and awe of, earth, water, and sky.

It’s important to remember that photographers, like painters, make aesthetic decisions – they choose what formal elements will occupy the picture plane. In that, Canham is a consummately thoughtful organizer of the picture plane. He can beguile us with abstract, even minimalist essences, as in the haunting and simple “The Vivid Edges of a World,” wherein the soft alpen glow of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico seems indeed otherworldly. Many other scenes are more muscular, even heroic in their composition - spectacular blendings of intricate, sharp textures of earth and foliage against larger, strongly defined rock forms, as in the majestic arched symmetry of “A Moment When Something Sacred Is Revealed,” from Utah’s Zion National Park. His close-ups of undulating sandstone formations in the Colorado Plateau are utterly hypnotic. Still others are more poetic, impressionistic panoramas, both serene and churning, immersed in fog or sun-drenched ocean mists, as in the golden “The Great Sea Stirs Me,” where the crests of violent waves glimmer as if sprinkled with tiny jewels.

Our history is rich with philosophers and artists who have wisely said, in various ways, that Nature is God’s art. As I’ve mentioned several times in the past, I think that when we humans make our own art (and in particular, re-presenting Nature), we are, consciously or not, noticing the remnant spark of God’s primordial act of love – his creation – thus receiving it with joy. More important, one need not be an artist to be touched by Nature’s intrinsic power to elicit wonderment. In lieu of witnessing first- hand the myriad geographic gems that crown this planet, artistic masterworks that commemorate them can go far in keeping us connected to genuine awe.

This show is bursting with such works. And while I’m not certain of Rick Canham’s specific religious leanings, I don’t really need to be. The titles of his pictures very often indicate that he senses a humbling spiritual ethos, and I suspect he has more than just an inkling that a higher power had a hand in making these scenes possible in the first place. He’s an eminently accomplished purveyor and editor of visions that are inspiring in their unspeakable beauty, and for that I’m deeply grateful. Beyond their technical and compositional excellence, his photographs do remind me that there is God, I’m not Him, and He’s available for intimate conversation when I behold the wonders of His art.

Photo: “A Moment When Something Sacred Is Revealed” – by Rick Canham, on view THROUGH NOVEMBER 12 at Stark State College Student Center and the Advanced Technology Center, 6200 Frank Avenue, North Canton. Public viewing hours are 8 am – 8 pm Monday to Thursday / 8 am – 4 pm Friday / 8 am – Noon Saturday. Information at (330) 494 – 6170, ext. 4319, or email rpriest@starkstate.edu

Psychedelia Redux, or Postmodern Doodling, or...?

Psychedelia Redux, or Postmodern Doodling, or…?
By Tom Wachunas

The salon-style exhibit of several dozen untitled paintings by Joe Cortese, currently on view for maybe a few weeks at Acme Artists, poses something of a conundrum for anyone looking to pigeonhole exactly what he does as a painter. My suggestion is…don’t try. Better to take your cues from the show’s title – “Joe Cortese: The Life and Mind of…” – and be content to know that what Joe Cortese does best is…Joe Cortese.

There’s a lot of nodding going on here: nods to the Abstract Expressionists, including some Pollockian splatter jobs sans the gripping density; nods to Byzantine-type intricate patterning and bordering; nods to the ‘automatic writing’ of the Surrealists; nods to the urban graffiti milieu; nods to the underground comics of the 1970s; some nods to Peter Max (on steroids, maybe) psychedelia. If there is a dominant flavor in this mixed bag, Cortese himself calls it (in a September 16 Canton Repository story) “…a glorified doodle.” Or at least (when the paintings fall short of unarguably “glorious,” which many do) structured painterly scribbling.

And indeed, it’s the exploring of pictorial structures – regardless of what the paintings signify in overt content – that I find to be the most unifying element of this show. More specifically, structural dualities. Within the picture plane, Cortese often describes two “systems” of configurations (elaborate linear illustrations and amorphous color fields, for example) that can be either wholly separate, or integrated edge-to-edge - one system imposed upon, or in harmony with, another. If these works do signify the mind of the artist, it’s a mind that apparently loves, simultaneously, organized and elaborate decoration for its own sake, and surrender to serendipity; precise, intentional design and expressive spontaneity.

This tension, this clash and/or blending of motifs, has an emotional resonance (surely personal to Cortese, yet suggestive for us in one way or another) that is often quite intense, translated into a color dynamic that can be alternately cloying and inviting. We’re witnesses to the artist’s struggle to negotiate that tension into an agreement of some sort. Sometimes the resolution is awkward, left in suspended animation. And when there is a truce, many of Cortese’s intricate forms and surfaces, while often collaborating to produce dramatic spatial depth, and despite passages of saturated, neon-bright color, tend to radiate an aura of battle-induced ennui rather than any really ardent optimism.

In the end, amid the variously frenzied, brash, or sometimes silly pictorial content to be encountered in these works, I’m nonetheless left with the sense that there might be a latent or understated genius at work. The best paintings in this wild gestalt speak more compellingly about a process than about anything of discernable, accessible “reality,” and there’s certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with that. In any event, rest assured that for those of us who opt to peer deeply into that process, there’s little chance of, so to speak, nodding off.

Photo, courtesy Canton Repository Sept. 16 issue of ‘Ticket.’ Joe Cortese at Acme Artists, 332 Fourth Street NW, downtown Canton. (330) 452- 2263.

No Letdown Stand-Up

No Letdown Stand-Up
By Tom Wachunas

“Comedy is exaggerated realism. It can be stretched to the almost ludicrous, but it must always be believable.” - Paul Lynde -

The raucous season-opening production of “3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down” at Akron’s Weathervane Playhouse is a veritable theatrical pastiche, deftly melding hilarious, bizarre satire with a story line that moves along at relentlessly rapid-fire pace. The show, originally created by Michael Rupert (music) and Jerry Colker (book and lyrics), ran for 160 off- Broadway performances in 1985 and won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical.

Don’t be too thrown by the title. Yes, there are three men – total - in the cast. But beyond their progressively exposed egos, aspirations, and disillusionments, they don’t in fact get naked. This is a PG-13 story (language and thematic content) about Ted Klausterman, Kenny Brewster, and Phil Kunin – a New York City trio of stand-up comics whose meteoric rise to international celebrity, and subsequent flame-out, is alternately hysterical, pathetic, and poignant.

Marc Moritz directed this show, and he’s clearly let his cast, both as singers and actors, bring an exhilarating spontaneity to their respectively distinct performing styles, which in turn gives riveting credibility to their characters. And rest assured, these are three startlingly wild and crazy guys.

Rob Dougherty presents a remarkably finessed combination of optimistic charm and self- confidence in his role of comedy club emcee Ted Klausterman, the trio’s resourceful ‘leader,’ fascinating to watch as he vacillates, with maddening ease, between his own wisdom and the ludicrous choices he makes in his hunger for success. As Phil Kunin, hefty Patrick Ciamacco is commandingly funny even if he is the quintessential “angry guy” – a possible sociopath in the making if not already ripe. His street-wise, scary volatility is all the more intriguing as we watch him struggle to balance an insane career with his genuine longing to be with his family – conveyed with aching tenderness as he sings “A Father Now” late in the second act.

And speaking of scary volatility fused with tenderness, there’s Kenny Brewster, played to the hilt by Connor Simpson. The character is described as a “Zen Catholic,” which only somewhat explains his “conceptual” comedy routine. Simpson is nothing short of mesmerizing as he negotiates his character’s surreal disconnects from life as we know it, slipping in and out of various movie roles with the alacrity of a quick-change artist, and an inventory of voices to match. If chronic psychotic episodes can be said to be gut-splittingly funny, Brewster/Simpson’s your man. But there’s a darker underside to this pathology, colored by a desire to leave it all behind one way or the other, as Simpson sings with convincing, childlike pining in “Dreams of Heaven.”

Keyboardist Brad Wyner directs a small but razor-sharp live ensemble here, delivering a fully rich, energetic sound that’s always in fine balance with the impeccably enunciated singing. Arguably, the musical doesn’t yield memorable, anthemic songs with truly iconic melodies. But they do possess an appropriate, in-the-moment verve and theatricality – infectiously so - that effectively enhances the slap-stick, cabaret atmosphere.

For all of the masterful lampooning and satire we see here about show business and “The American Dream,” the story never succumbs to heavy-handed moralizing. Think of it as a tornadic, we’re-all-Bozos-on-this-bus tour through a country named Stand-Up Comedy. The authors of the written constitution for this particular country were surely inspired by the likes of The Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Andy Kaufman. It’s a country where some laws of physics still hold true – the opposite of gravity is comedy; what goes up must come down; you’re not in Kansas anymore. Enjoy the ride.


Photo: from left to right, Connor Simpson as Kenny Brewster, Patrick Ciamacco as Phil Kunin, and Rob Dougherty as Ted Klausterman, in the Weathervane Playhouse production of “3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down.” Shows through September 25, 1301 Weathervane Lane, Akron. Performances are Thursday 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2:30 pm. Tickets are $24, $21 for seniors and students for Thursday and Sunday performances, and $19.50 for children ages 17 and younger. For tickets, visit or call the box office at (330) 836 – 2626, or online at www.weathervaneplayhouse.com

Homeland Asunder

Homeland Asunder
By Tom Wachunas

“This is not war, this is murder.” – a Confederate general after viewing Union dead from the Battle of Cold Harbor, 1864 –

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” – Robert E. Lee, after the Battle of Fredericksburg, 1862 –

Some anniversaries are cause for joyous remembrance. Others of course are occasions for somber reflection if not remorse. Amid all the media coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, there were several reports of how the awful debris from ground zero has made its way to far-flung places across this land. Corroded girders and all manner of twisted, burned architectural remnants have been exhibited as public monuments. Oh how we cherish the artifacts and remains of our cruelest tragedies. In as much as we regard such displays with solemn respect, I wonder if they’re not so many milestones along our trudge through history as much as they are millstones weighing down our relentlessly troubled heads and hearts.

To the extent that war itself has been disambiguated into an “art” (Sun Tzu’s 5th century BC treatise, “The Art of War,” comes to mind), then it’s certainly true that we’ve made an art out of remembering it. A breathtaking, lavish example is the current exhibition at The Canton Museum of Art, called “A Nation Divided: The Heartland Responds.” The sprawling show commemorates, with particular relevance to Ohio and surrounding ‘heartland’ states, the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. In its sheer depth and variety of artifacts – clothing, weaponry, letters written from soldiers’ camps, and a stunning array of other 19th century wartime “accessories,” the exhibit is a curatorial tour de force.

But what sheds the most dramatic light on this dark episode of American history is the imagery – photographs, drawings, and prints that bring a palpable, heartrending immediacy to a terrible conflagration. Photography in the 1860’s was still considered by many to be a newfangled concoction, a novelty. The first permanent photographic images – daguerreotypes – were introduced in 1839. As a medium for presenting indisputable records of physical realities (prior to modern-age technical trickery), it’s fair to say that photography quickly came of age during the Civil War. And with it, the classical notion that war was in any way a noble or sanctified pursuit would flounder in a sea of images of the wounded, the dead, the savaged landscape.

This is certainly not to say that the predominant content of the imagery here is blood and gore. Far from it. In fact, emanating from many of the photographs of soldiers is a sense of quiet pride and dignity, even if there is the accompanying appearance of antiseptic stiffness. No such rigidity, though, is to be found in the marvelous drawings by Winslow Homer that were turned into prints for Harper’s Weekly. For all their aged, dingy patina, these are remarkably alive depictions of soldiers that exude real emotion and often, if it can be said of such a horrific context, compelling warmth.

The exhibit nonetheless succeeds in reminding us quite effectively of the more jarring and deadly complexion of battle. One display case presents us with photos of Alvah R. Williams, a Pennsylvania soldier wounded in the Battle of Petersburg. A photo shows him after surgery, his right arm amputated. Also on display is the .58 caliber bullet (“Minie Ball”) that shattered his elbow, as well as a leather prosthetic. It’s an eerily medieval contraption with internal metal gears, originally colored to look like flesh, and now just a sickly, mottled gray. Elsewhere, another case houses a battlefield surgeon’s tool box, containing amputation saws, knives, a tonsil puller, blood letter, and an utterly sinister-looking skull drill.

On the heels of commemorating 9/11 and all it conjures in our hearts, this exhibit is still timely in its powerful joining of art with history. Yet in all of its authentic lest-we-forget sensibility, and the thoroughly expert care with which it was assembled, there is perhaps a hint of bittersweet irony about it. I wish we didn’t need (or want) to see shows of this sort at all. But we do. In his own era, Robert E. Lee hoped we would not grow too fond of war. He’d surely be mortified to witness that now in the 21st century, war remains evidently not terrible enough to abandon. So I suppose you could say I “love” this exhibit. But I hate doing so.

Photo: “Home From The War,” by Winslow Homer, on view through October 10 at The Canton Museum of Art, 1001 Market Avenue N., Canton. Museum hours are Tuesday, Wednesday 10am to 8pm / Thursday, Friday 10am to 5pm / Saturday 10am to 3pm / Sunday 1 – 5pm.
www.cantonart.org (330) 453 - 7666