Accidental tour of art museum turns into a Garden of Delight

It was a vow I made to myself nearly 35 years ago that took me to explore the reason Edmonton is spending $88 million on a new art gallery.

In 1973, I ended up hippie-broke outside Madrid's Museo Nacional del Prado after travelling rough across North Africa and on my way to living even rougher in the parks of Paris.

I sneaked into a party while entering the world-famous art gallery and suddenly came face to face with The Garden of Delight by Hieronymous Bosch.

I wasn't a big fan of the Flemish painter (1453-1516), but writer Henry Miller had featured his work on the cover of his book, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.

The book, published in 1957, motivated me to travel and was a major reason for my initial journey to Edmonton from London.

Miller's book is a personal narrative about his life on the rugged California coast near Carmel, where he lived for more than a decade after returning from his lengthy European expatriation.

The author alludes to Bosch's depiction of fruit as symbolic of a garden of earthly delights, and enjoyed the natural beauty of the isolated coast and his colourful neighbours.

Seeing Bosch's original work was a poignant moment and I decided if Miller was into such art, I should investigate it and his love for it.

The pledge to appreciate art has largely gone unsung. I have picked up a few original pieces on travels. But I'm one of the legion who say: "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like."

I was rather sheepish when I walked into the Art Gallery of Alberta recently to meet with Ruth Burns, a Victoria Composite High School grad who gained her undergraduate degree in art history at McGill before returning to study for her master's.

Burns is now the gallery's interpretive programs manager and works closely with chief curator and deputy director Catherine Crowston.

"Life without art is a sombre prospect for me," she says.

Burns is excited the Randall Stout Art Gallery of Alberta is scheduled to open in January 2010.

"The gallery will add to the reasons why people would be attracted to living here," she said. "It will complement our world-class Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Edmonton Opera Company."

I asked Burns how those who don't know much about art should go about learning and appreciating it.

She said be open to a work and don't let your preconceptions interfere with your experience.

- Question your assumption and emotional response. "If you are upset, perhaps this was the artist's intention."

- Take your time and study the work. Ask yourself what you are looking at. There's often a range of meaning and there isn't a fixed answer or response.

- Ask someone who is knowledgeable lots of questions. Why did the artist make the decision they did? Jackson Pollock upset many by seemingly losing control and allowing paint to fall onto a canvas. "He's today regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest artists."

- Connect ideas that emerge from a work with our larger world. "That's when art can be most powerful."

- Tolerate uncertainty in art. Engaging in a piece is an exercise in discovery. There is no right or wrong answer.

- Chose art for your home that you enjoy and can live with.

"There are people in our community with decades of art experience," says Burns. "We are looking for such people to become volunteers, study the work to be featured in future exhibitions and then communicate with others." Applications: www.artgalleryalberta.com.

It was perhaps with a slightly better understanding I took a peek at an exhibition opening this weekend: The Painter as Printmaker: Impressionist Prints from the National Gallery of Canada.

"It features more than 65 works, including those key Impressionists artists, including Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh," says Burns.

Opening at the same time is A New Light: Canadian Painting After Impressionsim. "The show explores modern influences within Canadian painting in the late-19th century and early 20th century," says Burns. "In Canada, some thought the Impressionists were despisers of art. But some Canadian painters went to France to study, absorb and interpret the wealth of creative changes that were occurring. They came to conceive of the artist as an innovator, whose role was not to offer an ordered and rational representation of the world, but to capture the artist's sensation of the world."

Here ended my first lesson. Some 16 major shows a year a year will be staged at the new gallery.

It can only be a matter of time before I'm invited to lecture on why Miller featured the work of Hieronymus Bosch