Visions

A visit to the Morgan Library for a lunchtime concert provided a pretext to check out their current exhibitions. "She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 B.C." is a marvel, building around the figure of priestess and poet Enheduanna, the first surviving author in history, a treasure chamber of images of Sumerian and Akkadian women. The goddesses are familiar but these images of 

women - some of whom the exhibition argues are portraits of individuals - are something different. Consider the woman seated 

with a cuneiform text on her lap (c. 2112-2004 BCE) above, or these scenes of weavers (c. 3300-3000 BCE), an all-female sacrificial scene (c. 2334-2154 BCE) or an all-female banquet (c. 2500 BCE). Even some of the images of goddesses - like this one from c. 2400 BCE - seem like real women!

Had less time for the other exhibits, but enjoyed the drawings of Georg Baselitz, most of which, starting in 1969, he deliberately painted upside-down, allowing him (and viewers) to focus on painting itself without abandoning the figurative; this is Waldweg (1976).

And, keeping with the (inevitable!) theme of trees, here's one of the early drafts of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince, entitled "The little prince on a planet invaded by a baobab" (1942).