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Discuss­ing Art

ARI

Miss Rand had very definite preferences in art. Read­ing The Romantic Manifesto, I see that she admired Vermeer and disliked Rembrandt. Did she ever discuss your art preferences with you, Mary Ann?

MARY ANN

She had very definite preferences in everyth­ing. As far as my own preferences, we did discuss them on a number of occasions. And I always found those discussions valuable. I always learned some­thing—not on­ly about the subject, but about myself, about what I liked and why I liked it. I can give you an example. But first I want to clear up some­thing about Miss Rand and Rembrandt, since you men­tioned him.

ARI

What’s that?

MARY ANN

She didn’t admire some of his subjects or his painter­ly style. She made that clear in her writ­ing and in lec­tures, and she gave her reasons. But she did acknowledge, to me personal­ly and dur­ing ques­tion periods publicly, that he was master­ful in his use of light and dark, in his way of compos­ing with those elements to achieve arrest­ing and dramatic effects. In her appraisal of him, she made this distinc­tion.

Some peo­ple who admired Rembrandt were offended by her remarks. But, I often wonder if they ever discussed with her what they liked about him and why, and explored their responses. The times I discussed art preferences with her, I learned how to approach some­thing critical­ly in a way I hadn’t been able to do before the discussion.

ARI

Give me an example.

MARY ANN

It was a discussion about the movie The African Queen, starr­ing Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. At the time, it was one of my favorite movies. More than once, I praised it and recommended it to Ayn and Frank, who hadn’t seen it. I knew they liked Hepburn.

ARI

Why did you like it?

MARY ANN

I thought it was a great adventure story about ordinary peo­ple who un­der­take to do some­thing extraordinary. I liked the effect that Hepburn and Bogart had on one another. He was a drunk and a coward, and she encouraged him to be brave and sober. She was a repressed, compliant, and very proper spinster; and with him she became assertive, feminine, and a woman in love. They brought out the best in each other. They were in a terrible situa­tion, had to fight for survival, and they didn’t give up. And, most important, they succeeded.

ARI

So what happened?

MARY ANN

One day—this was after the publica­tion of Atlas—Ayn called me to say that The African Queen was play­ing on television that even­ing, and invited me over to watch it with them. I thought they would see the same things in it that I did and would like it, too. Well, very ear­ly in the movie, she began to in­di­cate her disapproval, and so did Frank, but not as much as she did. And my heart sank.

ARI

What didn’t she approve of? How did she in­di­cate it?

MARY ANN

The pronounced naturalistic touches in the movie. For example, in the scene where they are hav­ing tea, Bogart’s stomach is mak­ing growl­ing and gurgl­ing noises. And she thought Hepburn was made to look unnecessari­ly plain and spinster-like, and Bogart unnecessari­ly dirty and unkempt. She in­di­ca­ted her disapproval by say­ing things like “tch tch” or “oh, no.” I thought, “This is the worst night of my life!” There were commercial interrup­tions, and I was dy­ing to start talk­ing about her reac­tions, but she suggested we wait until we had seen the entire movie and could talk without interrup­tion.

ARI

And when it was over?

MARY ANN

The first thing she did was turn to me and say that she could see why I liked it. I was shocked. And I asked her why, because she had disliked so much about the movie. And then she began to give me her analysis of my positive response to the movie.

First, she asked me ques­tions about my reac­tions to the characters of Bogart and Hepburn, and brought me to un­der­stand that I real­ly didn’t consider him a heroic type, that I had overlooked those naturalistic touches (the growl­ing stomach, his crudeness, his dirty clothes), and that my positive response was to Hepburn. I admired a woman who didn’t fold up and give up. In the story, she conceives of a plan to sink an enemy ship, and she is determined that they will do it to­geth­er. And Ayn pointed this out to me: that I was respond­ing to the abstrac­tion of determina­tion and heroism, and overlook­ing some of the unsavory concretes. It was selective awareness, on my part. I remember very clear­ly one thing she said: that this is an example of some­one see­ing past the bad directorial touches in the movie, see­ing past the things that un­der­cut the characters of both Hepburn and Bogart.

She was sympathetic about my desire to see some­thing heroic in human behavior, but she pointed out what I had failed to see in the movie—or, more exactly, the aspects I dismissed or glossed over in my appraisal and, consequently, in my response.

ARI

So, it stopped be­ing one of your favorites?

MARY ANN

No, not ever. But, once I saw and un­der­stood the things she was point­ing out, I liked it less as a total movie.

ARI

Did you feel you had lost a value?

MARY ANN

I think I did feel that, in the begin­ning. But it was not because she encouraged me to give it up. There was never any sugges­tion of that. She was teach­ing me how to discriminate, how to introspect and un­der­stand which aspects of some­thing I responded to. She was encourag­ing me to try to seek out the reasons for that response. And, of course, it applied to more than one’s response to a movie.

ARI

How did you feel when you saw it again?

MARY ANN

It was a long time before I saw it again—in those days, there weren’t any VCRs or videos to rent, and one had to wait until it came back on TV or to a movie theatre. And when I did see it again, I was much more perceptive about the negative aspects of the movie. But, my response to the abstrac­tion—what I responded to initial­ly—hasn’t changed.

ARI

Tell me about another discussion.

MARY ANN

There was one about a paint­ing I dis­cov­ered in col­lege. It’s by Cézanne. It’s very simple—it shows a road next to a high wall, and there are tall trees along the road. The first time I saw a picture of it, I liked it immediate­ly. I was curious to hear her reac­tion. I knew that she didn’t like Cézanne; I didn’t either, not the total of his work. But this paint­ing was an excep­tion for me. And I couldn’t put my finger on why my response to it was so strong. One even­ing, I took over a slide of it and a projector, showed her the paint­ing, and asked her what she thought about it.

ARI

Why were her response and her thoughts important to you?

MARY ANN

Because when I like some­thing, it’s an added pleasure to know that my friends like it, too. But, also, I knew that I was go­ing to learn some­thing. I didn’t know what, but there never was a discussion with her when I didn’t learn some­thing.

ARI

And what happened?

MARY ANN

She asked me if I could tell her why I liked it. I don’t remember all that I said. I recall talk­ing about two things: the secluded, peace­ful sett­ing, and the sharp contrast between sunlight and shade in the paint­ing—what she called “stylized sunlight.” She said she could un­der­stand why I was respond­ing to that aspect of it.

ARI

What did you learn?

MARY ANN

It was another example of that same approach she used with The African Queen: try to identify why you like some­thing, and in which respect. Do you like the total? Which aspects appeal to you? What do they mean to you, personal­ly? Ask yourself, is what you like real­ly in the paint­ing, or are you bring­ing some­thing to it and respond­ing to that?

ARI

Did you learn why you liked it?

MARY ANN

No, not in every respect. I agreed with her analysis of the sunlight and shade, and I did find that attractive. But there was some­thing else I couldn’t name. When I told her this, she suggested that perhaps I was respond­ing to some­thing I was bring­ing to the paint­ing, some­thing that was triggered by an aspect of the work. I asked her how I could get at this “some­thing”—whatever it was. And then she suggested that I begin by compil­ing a list of other art works I liked, and then ask myself if they had anyth­ing in common. That was the begin­ning of an odyssey for me that lasted a few years and took me all the way back to ear­ly childhood. Final­ly, I did un­der­stand why I loved the paint­ing.

The value of that discussion was her stress on the importance of un­der­stand­ing the reasons behind artistic preferences. Do­ing so puts you in touch with yourself, and you identify your basic values in the process.

ARI

Did she like the paint­ing?

MARY ANN

She was lukewarm. She liked the strong contrast between sunlight and shade, but she didn’t like the loose, sketchy style. However, in the discussion, she was focused on my responses and the reasons for them, not on hers.

ARI

I heard that you played some of your favorite Frank Sinatra recordings for her.

MARY ANN

This was the spr­ing of 1980, after her husband died.¹ On one visit, I took all my favorite Sinatras to play for her, and so did Sue Ludel,² who was also a Sinatra fan. It was Sue’s idea. Ayn agreed to listen to them and comment.

ARI

Did she like any of them?

MARY ANN

She liked one very much, “Winners”—especial­ly the lyrics; lines like “Here’s to the battle, whatever it’s for, to ask the best of ourselves, and give much more.” She didn’t like the sw­ing ar­range­ment of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” She said that the tempo destroyed the song, which had been written with a Latin beat. I remember verbatim her comment about one of my favorites, “Here’s That Rainy Day.” She said, disapproving­ly, “Mary Ann, it has no melody!” I could see her point, but that didn’t change my mind about it. She asked me why I liked it. I said that the ar­range­ment featured the purity of his voice and the clarity of every word he sang. And then she made some very perceptive and positive comments about his phras­ing, his enuncia­tion, the way he used his voice to convey the emo­tional quality of a song. She was not a Sinatra fan and hadn’t listened to his music over the years. But, when she did, she grasped what was unique about him.

ARI

Did she enjoy the session?

MARY ANN

For a while. But after about an hour of it, we had to stop. She said it was giv­ing her a headache! Sue had brought over some gay operetta marches to play as an antidote. They cured the headache.

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Copyright 2001 © Mary Ann Sures. Copyright 2001 © Leonard Peikoff. All rights reserved.

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