it the way you think of Sweeney’s gravestones. You have to have furniture, right? But what the really fine craftsmen and their workshops did was to turn it into an art. Creating a leg wasn’t just about making something for the table to stand on, it was about making it the most functional and beautiful leg they could make it.”
He looked over at Sweeney and smiled.
“I’m interested in that,” Patch said, warming to the topic. “When you study a gravestone, are you studying it as a piece of art or a piece of anthropology? I mean, there are other media for artistic expression that are easier to work with than gravestones.”
“It’s art and anthropology. Many stonecarvers didn’t have those media available to them,” Sweeney said. “In America they were frequently European immigrants who had trained as sculptors back home. They carved some beautiful stones. For families who could afford special commissions, but also for families who couldn’t. I like to think of them like Amish quilts. The women who made them weren’t allowed to be artists. But when they created functional things like quilts, they really let loose and made things of beauty.”
“What do you mean when you say art history?” Gwinny asked.
Gally said meanly, “It’s the history of art, stupid.”
Gwinny made an extremely unattractive face in his direction, but Ian turned to her and said kindly, “It’s the study of how art has developed over the years. From cave paintings in France to Andy Warhol. Art historians trace the different movements, how one led to another and how artists reacted against, say, paintings they thought were too fancy and formal by making paintings that were more natural, that recreated nature without embellishment.”
“Oh,” Gwinny said. “But cave paintings aren’t considered real art, are they? It’s just drawings of buffalo and stuff.”
“But they are absolutely art,” Ian said, with feeling. “The people who painted animals on the insides of caves were painting what was familiar to them. Animals were their means of survival, they were sacred, and those cave painters drew them with loving detail, the same way the Renaissance painters would labor over every detail of the background in a painting of a madonna and child.”
“But what is it for?” Gwinny asked. “I like looking at art and everything, but what is it for, other than being pretty?”
It struck Sweeney that Gwinny was acting out by questioning the usefulness of art. In this family, it was the equivalent of questioning capitalism in a family where the business was banking.
“It’s for a lot of things,” Sweeney said now. “For one thing, it tells us a lot about what was going on at a particular time. How people lived, what kind of houses they lived in, what kind of bowls they ate out of. Art as anthropology. When I study gravestones and things like Victorian mourning rings or Egyptian funeral practices, I learn a lot about how people felt about death.
“But that’s only part of it, I think. Art is also about representing the sublime, or at least it should be. When you look at a beautiful painting, you feel that you know what feeling or atmosphere the artist was trying to capture. You experience something that’s true.”
The food came quickly and she ate silently for a few minutes before she looked up to find Ian staring at her.
“Have you heard anything about the little girl?” he asked after an awkward moment. “I wonder how she’s doing?”
“The little girl? Oh, you mean Mrs. Kimball’s granddaughter. You’d have to ask Patch. She can’t be doing very well.”
“Children that age react to things in funny ways. They’re very good at deflection. At least my daughter is.”
“You have a daughter? I didn’t know.” She felt herself blush.
“Her mother and I are divorced and they live in Paris,” Ian said quickly. “I don’t see her as much as I’d like, but . . .”
“What’s her name?”
“Eloise.”
“That’s pretty. I had a French friend named Eloise when I was at Oxford.”
“Oxford,” he said. “Well, I shall have to watch my back. I was at Cambridge. You Oxonians are notoriously treacherous, you know.”
“I was only there for a few years,” Sweeney said, grinning at him. “Doing graduate work. Maybe it doesn’t count.”
The waitress came over with another scotch for Ian and he took a long sip as Patch said something at the other end of the table that made everyone laugh.
“What part of England are you from? I’m good at accents and I guessed London,” Sweeney asked.
“Ha! Sussex. But