Impressionism

No streets, no towns, no homes, no people. Just majestic, sun-drenched landscape. Nature, unspoiled, in all her transcendent glory. With a few notable exceptions, that's what distinguished the art that poured forth from Laguna Beach in the early 20th century from the work that came out of three prominent East Coast art colonies, the subject of an ambitious new exhibit at Laguna Art Museum.

At a youthful 55, Roger Guenveur Smith is at least a few decades too old to carry baseball cards in his wallet, but the one he takes out to show has a special meaning. The memories he discusses on the outdoor patio of an Echo Park coffee shop are not serene: The card — which he found at a swap meet a few years ago — is a replacement for one he burned more than 40 years ago. On the card is Juan Marichal — then a San Francisco Giants pitcher — who, one summer day in 1965, at bat in the third inning of a close game, hauled off and hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro, who he thought had provoked him. He hit Roseboro hard, with his bat, in the head, three times — enough to draw blood from a 2-inch gash.

"Baylis writes about art and politics, women and sex, oppression, freedom, self-expression and social stigma from an ardently feminist perspective. Her vision is frank and refreshing, sparing neither the sacred cows of Impressionism nor our preconceptions of their world as portrayed in their paintings."

Last spring in the Paris Metro, I paused to admire a colorful advertisement for the Impressionist Normandy Festival, a celebration of the region's role in the Impressionist painting movement. My brother Davey, an art history major at Connecticut College, was contemplating an ad for detergent. "Hey, bro!" I called. "Check this out. " Whenever I see Impressionist paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the airy brushstrokes transport me to the late 19th century French villages.

Last spring in the Paris Metro, I paused to admire a colorful advertisement for the Impressionist Normandy Festival, a celebration of the region's role in the Impressionist painting movement. My brother Davey, an art history major at Connecticut College, was contemplating an ad for detergent. "Hey, bro!" I called. "Check this out. " Whenever I see Impressionist paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the airy brushstrokes transport me to the late 19th century French villages.

Christopher Knight's mean-spirited critique of the current display of Impressionist art at the LACMA West building makes one pause and reflect on the purpose of art criticism ("A Vacuous Tour of Impressionism," Aug. 18). Is it only to see well-turned phrases that have nothing of substance to offer the reader but bitchiness? Knight's writing, insisting on more portrayals of sensual oysters and dead toreadors, did nothing to enhance my understanding of Impressionism, but it did offer a glimpse into the mind-set of an obviously frustrated writer.

Dean Kuipers' article indicates a new creativity emerging in Japanese popular music ("Made in Japan," March 31). This is both a welcome sign and perhaps no big surprise. Although I am an artist living in Tokyo (and previously a New York-based electronic music composer), I am not familiar with this music. But I found it significant that with both Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius, the word "nowhere" figures prominently, ostensibly in the sense that their latest music is not borrowed from other music from anywhere in particular, that it is more original (and that this is newsworthy)

Golly, here I am in Washington, trying to persuade people that the Los Angeles Times is superior to the local rag (which rhymes with toast and whose Style section specializes in politically correct profiles), when I notice a Calendar Page 1 personal attack on me by art critic Cathy Curtis ("Should the NEA Fund R&D?" Feb. 11). My crime was writing a Heritage Foundation report that criticizes the National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Curtis begins by calling me "right-wing" (a term for anybody that progressives don't like, from Charlton Heston to anti-Gorbachev Communists)

When they converged in San Francisco about 45 years ago, Wolfgang Paalen, Gordon Onslow Ford and Lee Mullican wanted nothing less than to be image makers of cosmic freedom. The purpose of art, they thought, was self-transcending awareness.

Yippee! Christopher Knight slams another art exhibition ("A Vacuous Tour of Impressionism," Aug. 18)--my sure-fire tip to go see and enjoy some beautiful art before it's shipped back to its faraway home. ANITA KELLY NITTA Manhattan Beach

A crowd rich in sports legends, Academy Award winners and recording stars packed the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza for the Harold Pump Foundation's anniversary celebration. The honorees at the Aug. 12 event were Denzel Washington, Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali and Kansas businessman Joseph Brandmeyer. Morgan Freeman, Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg and Cedric the Entertainer teamed up to present Washington's award. "If I hadn't played God," Freeman said, "I'd be jealous of the fact that he got to play an angel," referring to the two-time Academy Award winner's role in "The Preacher's Wife.

If Paris is out of reach, you can catch the vibe closer to home. The De Young Museum in San Francisco opens the first of two shows this month featuring masterpieces from the famed Musée d'Orsay. The first show, "Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces From the Musée d'Orsay," presents 100 works by such masters as Édouard Manet and Claude Monet. The show, which was to open Saturday, runs through Sept. 6. Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for children 6 to 17; free for children 5 and younger.

In "Impressionism," the new play by Michael Jacobs, art gallery owner Katharine Keenan (Joan Allen) playfully teases shy colleague Thomas Buckle about "a hideous sexual problem." That figures.

DID you know that Napoleon III suffered from such acute hemorrhoids that towels had to be stuffed into his breeches when he rode his horse at the Battle of Sedan? That the plein-air painting style dear to many Impressionists was made possible by substituting metal tubes for the unwieldy cows' bladders that had traditionally contained artists' pigments?

The oldest museums in America have their storerooms full of paintings that were the rage in art more than a century ago but are now out of fashion. This gloomy repose is often the fate of the 19th century Barbizon painters of France. Their paintings were once prized by collectors all over the world, but the Barbizon painters had the misfortune to work just before the Impressionists came on the scene. These younger painters eclipsed them long ago.

Dean Kuipers' article indicates a new creativity emerging in Japanese popular music ("Made in Japan," March 31). This is both a welcome sign and perhaps no big surprise. Although I am an artist living in Tokyo (and previously a New York-based electronic music composer), I am not familiar with this music. But I found it significant that with both Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius, the word "nowhere" figures prominently, ostensibly in the sense that their latest music is not borrowed from other music from anywhere in particular, that it is more original (and that this is newsworthy)

For dedicated gardeners, planting a flower border that produces continuous color is a complex project. And emulating the elegant informality of Monet's gardens at Giverny would seem leagues more arduous. Now, White Swan Ltd., an Oregon seed company, has developed Flowers of Monet, a virtually brown-thumb-proof seed collection inspired by the father of Impressionism.

I found your March 11 cover story articles quite timely and vitally important ('Rated C for Confusing" and "Does the Ad Say It All?'). It is unbelievable what passes for PG-13 these days. Sex and sexual humor, drugs and alcohol and their use, profanity, violence, aggression-these are not age appropriate, yet are constant elements and themes in the majority of PG-13 movies out right now. What messages are being sent to our young people, the hope of our future? Is it any wonder that today's teens seem so lost, angry, aggressive, confused about what's real and what they see in movies and TV-that a disagreement and perceived slight can be dealt with by using a gun?

It's hard to believe, as you shuffle through a crowded (what other kind is there?) show of Impressionist painting, that Impressionism was born of defiance, as a circumvention of the system. It was an exhilarating snub of academic standards, which, in late 19th century Europe, meant tight draftsmanship, high finish and, preferably, subject matter of some historical or literary import.