Watteau for the Win / JEFFREY HECKER

JEFFREY HECKER

In 1800, new art students in the Louvre practiced throwing baguette chunks at The Embarkation for Cythera, a painting with two alternate titles: Voyage to Cythera and Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera. Watteau also created a follow-up: Pilgrimage to Cythera. Jean-Antoine really liked Venus. Venus tolerated Vulcan and Mars. By 2000, Aristocracy loved Counterinsurgency. The county fair rented a swing ride. Too much fun: fairy lights strung, Rococo masterpieces mounted on discoid dome raised 300 feet into Heaven spun 45 miles per hour. Wicker basket chairs held newer art students, suspended embossed Figaro chains. Little protection, the lap bar stunk like sunscreen. Nobody got off until sensual vice turned to virtue. Everybody swung or rotated.