No Art Appreciation

Award winning writer/director Nora Ephron tells how Vegas hotel magnate Steve Wynn punched a hole with his elbow in a $139 million dollar Picasso. Wynn's carelessness was staggering. But Ephron's nauseating attempt to make the who tale "charming" is the epitome of snob wankery. Whatever one may think of Picasso, his work has been monumentally influential; it is historic, and that's why it has value. If someone stuck their elbow through the Mona Lisa or punched a hole in a Gutenberg bible or a Stardivarius violin, it wouldn't be charming. Not the worst thing in the world, and indeed, not an incident necessarily devoid of humor. But neither is it a mere trivial faux pas, like Barbara Walters farting during an interview with Condoleeza Rice. The story was also told in The New Yorker, which quoted Wynn: “My feeling was, It’s a picture, it’s my picture, we’ll fix it. Nobody got sick or died. It’s a picture. It took Picasso five hours to paint it.” Well, no Picasso is just another picture like any other, and the historical influence of things can't be measured by the time it took to produce them (Jefferson spent a mere couple weeks drafting the Declaration of Independence). And I'm not sure one can say with certainty that "nobody got sick" (especially if they read Ephron's version of the tale). But the incident obviously did not compare in dire consequence to any of a number of other current events. And at least Wynn knew where to get the painting repaired, and he could afford to take the financial hit. But Ephron's account was told the same way she might have described Wynn spilling wine on his wife's expensive blouse. She may write good screenplays and be a decent film director, but she displays no respect here for the significance of genuine art beyond the dollar valuation.