Carol’s Column

Culture vulture strikes again

IT WAS a glorious Sunday afternoon, the sun was high in the blue sky, the birds were tweeting merrily.

Zoo Lake, that happy mecca of pastoral pleasure, was choc-a-block full of Johannesburgers happy to escape from the confines of their homes.

Spread out across the rolling lawns in their Technicolor glory were the offerings of the artists.

Impressionism, expressionism, naivism, Dadaism, realism, surrealism, modern, ultra-modern — it was all there, proudly displayed by the painters themselves.

And among this happy candy-floss and ice-cream-eating throng strolled the Lazar family.

"This is such fun, isn't it?" said my husband as he squeezed my hand passionately, causing a pause in the flow of blood to my fingers. "It makes you think how lucky we are."

It was unfortunate that at that moment, I was contemplating gangrene and a life without fingers on my left hand.

Slowly we strolled through the art works nestling on the pea-green grass, savouring the creativity of the artists.

Big, small, tall and short, thin and fat, they sat smiling at passers-by.

"How do you like my paintings, little boy?" said one exotic creature, a metre high and a metre wide, clothed in a bright orange and purple caftan.

Jamie, an astute 10-year-old with definite views on art, was short, explicit, to the point.

"Yuk," he said.

She smiled, patted him on the head, and murmured: "What a dear little boy."

It was only as she turned that I noticed the wire of a hearing aid protruding from behind her chartreuse hair.

Suddenly, the serenity of the afternoon was shattered by a loud and fearful cry.

We looked around — as did everyone else — to see a large, curly-haired artist in a paint-splattered smock chasing a small black dog.

"That horrible hound dared to lift his leg against my masterpiece!" he bellowed, waving his arms around in windmill-like fashion.

"I'll kill him, I'll drown him, I'll amputate his tail!" It was obvious he was not a little distressed.

My husband started and peered through his new-rage, coloured, prescription-lensed sunglasses.

"Good heavens," he said rather quietly. "That looks like Henry."

Henry being our small, black hound euphemistically described as a Scottie by his previous owners but resembling a miniature warthog in reality.

I wasn't alarmed for I knew categorically that the intrepid Henry was in our backyard where I had safely incarcerated him before we departed.

The situation was deteriorating, pandemonium had broken out as other artists joined in the chase.

Paintings went flying as did chairs, umbrellas and other casual paraphernalia.

"Isn't it gay," I said to my husband, "all this bustle and activity, it looks like a scene from a Bruegel painting."

"More like something from Dante's Inferno," he replied narrowing his eyes. "Look, are you sure that's not Henry?"

I looked again. True, the small black dog did resemble Henry. He had a similar way of running with his tail stuck straight up into the air in a warthog-like way, like a little flag pole.

The serenity of the afternoon was shattered and, to make matters worse, the aggrieved artist was now shouting for all the world to bear: "Whose dog is this? I'll line them up and shoot them!"

"He is over-reacting a bit, isn't he?" said my husband. Because now there was no doubt in our minds that the small, black dog was Henry.

We hid behind a larger-than-life still-life of a coat hanger, terrified that Henry would see and claim us.

And then it happened. Henry tired of the whole thing.

He stopped beside a gaudy painting of a setting sun in extremis, looked at his pursuers, then lifted his short, stocky little leg against the picture.

There was silence, and then said a loud voice: "What a perceptive dog that is."

Henry smiled and wagged his tail.

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