If Portraits Could Engage in Small-Talk

To seek shelter from the rain in Cardiff, I perused an art gallery where I finally learned the difference between a Monet and a Manet.  Previously, I wasn’t very intrigued by art museums, but with little else to occupy my time I soon discovered I’d rather stare at paintings than at rocks labeled as natural history. 

I found myself skipping the portraits of rosy-cheeked aristocrats wearing curly, gray wigs.  For the most part, I passed by the paintings of pudgy human-beings taking old-school Selfies.  Like characters in indie films, the subjects stared vacantly into the distance toward the frame and away from the viewer. 
 

 

I pretended that they were real people in drive-thru windows and wondered what we would talk about.  Judging by their pretentious outfits and their stern looks, these painted people didn’t look remotely interesting.  I imagined that if we could speak to one another, we’d be criticizing the outfits of the museum’s patrons and scoffing at their lack of taste.  Of course, if this were true, the speaking-portrait probably wouldn’t address me in the first place because I was wearing the same pair of cargo shorts and same pull-over for the last five days.

 
But maybe the people in the portraits were, in fact, scintillating conversationalists, who loathed their own outfits and hated posing for this bleak portrait because this particular moment——this frozen frame——didn’t fully represent their true character.  I changed my interpretation.  If these fictional creations had a life beyond their frames, maybe they would rather be wearing their pajamas curled up in bed with the popular literature of the day.  I was judging them based on a stereotyped opinion of rich snobs and harbored resentments toward strangers different from me.  But why was I imposing these distasteful personalities onto two-dimensional canvasses? Why was I avoiding these portraits as if they were real people, like I avoid aggressive salesmen, army recruiters, and panhandlers asking for spare change?

I evaded eye contact with the illusion of eyeballs, just carefully selected layers of paint, and instead gravitated toward countryside scenes and landscapes.  I remember standing, transfixed, while inspecting John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from a Meadow.  The massive painting is large enough to be a dining-room wall.  The people and horses are blurry, but small details like grasses, branches, the wagon-wheel spokes were composed of hard lines like crisp scratches on the underside of a CD.  I was attracted mostly by the contrast of light and darkness in the clouds——the chiaroscuro as the art students would say.  Rays of sunlight seep through a puffy bed of cumulous.  A rainbow arches over a darkened cathedral.  Nearby, a trio of horses pulls a wagon through a shallow creek for whatever reason.  Gazing at the painting, I felt as though I were spying while perched atop a small hill.  I could see them, but they weren’t looking at me. 

I wondered what my painting preferences said about my character:  Am I not a people-person?  Am I a detached observer rather than someone who directly and confidently confronts others?  Although I dislike small talk, I enjoy discussions that I would like to consider as intellectual, but the mood for socializing must strike me.  When I am strolling around the town, generally I prefer to be left alone to maintain my interior dialogue.  If walking through Little Italy in New York, for example, I will cross the street simply to avoid confronting an ad-man who will coax me into eating at his restaurant.  Even when I shop for discounted dress clothes at Macy’s, I try to duck into fitting rooms before salespeople can badger me.

Although I avoid these encounters, I love to talk.  However, I am developing a philosophy to be economical with my words.  Anybody who knows me can attest that I often deliver impromptu sermons about a recent film I’ve seen, or my outrage at the lack of bike lanes in a city.  The force of these torrents build up in my mind, and although my words falter at first soon they come gushing out.  Once I realize I’ve said enough, I shut up and go about my business. 

My theory is that a person can really only say maybe one or two brilliant things per day, so one should be carefully select topics of discussion.  I am currently fighting the urge to make unnecessary comments on various stimuli in my environment. 

Yesterday, for example, I was watching a Subway commercial wherein a small boy samples a raw cucumber, as presumably his eight-year-old stomach is very particular about what types of greens he consumes.  Immediately after nibbling on the vegetable, the boy voraciously nods his head, indicating to the sandwich artists that yes, a resounding yes, he will have cucumbers on his six-inch sub. 

As there was no one else in the living room with me but my aunt’s small dog, I said to the dog, who is incapable of human speech, “Yeah, right, like that happens at Subway.” Nobody gets that visibly excited about a transaction over raw vegetables, but that’s not the point.  The point is, I said something just to say it.  Although sometimes these kinds of comments can be enjoyable, mostly they don’t lead to any substantial discussion, and they only further exacerbate a bad habit of speaking for the sake of speaking. 

There are so many instances in daily life that require polite conversation with strangers, but many times these encounters nearly follow a script.  I have certain automatic responses, an arsenal, if you will, which I have prepared to use when participating in conversations I want no part of.  Using these stock phrases is a way of having a conversation without really engaging and using up mental energy. 

Everyone has their go-to responses.  I say “indeed” a lot as an affirmation, and that word has stuck with me.  While I consider what to say, neurons are firing in my brain.  When I first learn a word and search for a relevant verbal application, my neurons are struggling to blaze a trail like forlorn hikers lost in the thick Amazonian jungle.  With each successive journey, my neurons create paths from synapse to synapse.  The more I use the word “indeed” the clearer that trail becomes, and the less mental energy I have to expend when considering a response.

When I speak to a cashier, usually she asks me how my day is going, but I always give her a generic response, “I’m doing well.  How are you?”  Typically, she says she is fine.  If she has some spunk, she’ll complain about the long hours with the incessantly beeping scanners. 

Aside from these encounters, the usual, small-talk dialogue is unspecific, and ultimately we glean very little about how our days are truly going.  In these cases, we again are speaking simply for the sake of filling the airspace with the words we expect to hear.  Sure, small talk is friendly and harmless.  I once read an advice column about how to conduct myself at an interview, and the writer advised me to avoid heavy subjects and instead comment on the weather.  How can I distinguish myself if I speak about what everyone else does?  These repetitive syllables and often obvious statements become so commonplace as to blend into the background noise. 

 
We have so much power over our words, so we should use this to our advantage.  The way we speak is part of our personalities.  Each expression we articulate is a choice that represents us and makes the internal external in the same way the design of a shirt can reveal who we are.  As an aspiring writer who is paying thousands of dollars for an education in which my main goal was to learn more words and effectively string them into legible sentences, I try to increase my vocabulary by reading and then use these new words in my speech, just to add a little flavor. 

The exploration for a unique verbal or written descriptions reminds me of a Monet painting of lily pads floating on water of pink, green, and soft blue hues.  Monet’s objective with this blend was to capture the brief impression of light reflecting off the water, rather than focusing on the water itself.  To achieve this, he tried to visualize the lily pads as though he were seeing them for the first time.  Rigid structures did not interest him.  He was more concerned with capturing a moment that could not be replicated.