The thicket of vegetating yet living carpet that streaked my white loafers with green stains also pumped subtle freshness into the ornate room. A gold rim encircled the dome roof, separating the canvas of a pink hued sunset fresco and the expansive lush green landscape of a renaissance Italian village overtaken by overgrowth and tranquility. I did not mind the contradiction of dusk and noon in the juxtaposition of this natural wealth in oil streaks and splattered design. In fact the slightly darkened ceiling directed my gaze further into the exhibitions which glimmer a pleasance I had long forgotten. I was reminded of summer days as a child and so I lingered in this gallery longer than I intended. I expected a lame and bland installation of generic mimics of old naturalist masters, yet the set up of impressionistic paintings popped with original clarity when spread not as a one dimensional square on a white, pristine wall, but upon full length of wall amidst an ambitious green house.
I wondered how they induced the necessary photosynthesis in such a building of marble antiquity. Yet as I lingered in the rotunda which was carved with streams and a massive waterfall in the center, seduced into a humble meditation of ease, until closing time and the soft lighting of yellow bulbs dimmed, I learned of hidden lights. With a hiss, on fizz the purple glow of black light from deep in the tiny crevices upon the ceiling. These rays danced upon the leaves and elephant ears and flowers yet hardly embraced the paintings as noticeable. We all saunter out from the cohabitation of god’s art and man’s representation in the purple glow making faces black and white loafers vibrant. We are but zombies now, disappointed at the disappearance of our metropolitan heaven and must now ready ourselves to reenter daylight refracted from tower windows and puddles upon concrete.
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