Weeping for Art

When we last left our intrepid duo intent on a methodical survey of the VMFA, they had finished the 21st-century gallery.

Where better to begin than with abstract expressionism on a late Saturday afternoon with a forecast of thunderstorms?

Especially after last night's Judith Godwin openings and the attendant paintings, it seemed only right to pick up at mid-century to connect up.

And all Judith's action painting cohorts from NYC in the '50s were there: Pollok, Kline, de Kooning.

Moving on, we came to the color field painters.

Morris Louis' "Claustral" was stunning but sly.

The beautiful lengths of color poured down the unprimed canvas had become nothing more than drips by the time they reached the other side.

Not content to deliver the expected, Louis had then turned the canvas upside down so that the drips were at the top.

The dribbles headed upward were a witty visual joke.

I'm a big fan of Robert Rauschenberg's combines, those works that combined painting and found objects.

"Co-existence" with its rusty baton and broken pieces of a wooden police barricade was a perfect example of the bridge between abstract expressionism and pop art.

In the pop art gallery, I was charmed by Ed Ruscha's quote, "I wish I'd kept some of my better known works. I weep over that."

Advice for the young painter, right there.

Pop art's ironic embrace of media and popular culture may have been a slap in the face to the abstract expressionists, but it certainly delivered a lighter message and look than its predecessors.

Our final gallery for today's foray was the "painterly abstraction" room with works from the '80s and '90s and demonstrating the much wider range of influences those artists had to pull from.

Sort of the difference in the influences to be absorbed by a post-punk band of the '80s versus how much more could be absorbed by a post-punk revival band of the aughts.

As we sat there admiring the return of a more painterly style, a guard came into tell us we had five minutes to clear out.

Obediently, we exited via my favorite Boulevard entrance.

So now it was 5:00 and time for a late lunch.

Since we were already in the Museum district, we opted for Deco.

My one and only visit had been a disappointment in that the kitchen was out of everything on the Sicilian street food menu.

Since I'm hardly a fan of traditional Italian (the whole rest of the menu), I was hoping for better luck tonight.

And indeed, we found it.

We were the first customers in, so early that they hadn't even turned the music on yet.

I made sure that was corrected toute suite.

It was a decent mix of standards ("The Look of Love," Billie Holiday) and at a volume that provided ambiance but didn't impede conversation.

Choosing wine was more challenging because there were only two red and two whites by the glass.

I'd always prefer at least three glass choices, because what if I wanted something more full-bodied than pinot grigio and didn't want Prosecco?

SOL, as they say.

We asked for the Annalissa pinot grigio and began ordering street food.

Poipettine (meatballs with currants and pine nuts) were meaty and moist, panelle (chickpea fritters) were fried up perfectly and made more addicting with a fresh-tasting pesto and a generous serving of caponata Siciliana (eggplant salad) provided a filling topping for bread.

The vibe was exactly what you'd want on a late Saturday afternoon - rain falling gently outside, standards testing our musical memories and basic street food executed well.

For our last course, we surprised our young server and got a cheese plate of aged Parmesan, creamo cavalli and primo sale, making for creamy, semi-hard and hard selections.

By that time, we'd been joined in the restaurant by a few other tables, all of whom opted to sit in the other dining room, leaving us to wonder if it was something we had said.

Not that we cared.

The company, music and food were right.

About the only thing I could have wished for (had a genie come along) would have been to see the rain dripping up the window rather than down.

But I wouldn't weep over that.

I understand  that Mother Nature is no color field painter.