Salvation for a Spot of Sanity

At least for a few, art proved essential in the nation’s capital. Faced with a partial government shutdown, the National Gallery of Art wisely drew funds from private sources and reopened its once-in-a-lifetime Johannes Vermeer exhibition.

Making our representatives in Congress and the White House go see those placid, intimate images of middle-class life in a 17th century Dutch village might do a world of good. Who knows, if they saw the lives of ordinary people, they might abandon their political posturing and give us a budget.

With funding frozen, gallery director Earl “Rusty” Powell III decided to take $30,000 from the gallery’s privately supported Fund for International Exchange. As a result, thousands of frustrated ticket holders got a wonderful Christmas present.

The show will move to Holland in February. If the politicians don’t act soon, additional American art lovers might be denied a chance to see the greatest exhibition of Vermeer’s works ever assembled. It took 10 years to put together this exhibit of 21 of the 35 existing Vermeers.

We have to wonder just how much thought the people in the legislative and executive branches of government have given to the inconveniences, both large and small, that they have inflicted on Americans since the budget tug of war began again Dec. 16. The near-loss of the Vermeer exhibit is but one example.

Do displays of art really matter? Ask Judge Antonio Cassese, who is presiding in The Hague over the U.N. war crimes tribunal on the Bosnian war. Cassese told a writer recently that he keeps his sanity by going “as often as possible” to the Mauritshuis Museum there “to spend a little time with the Vermeers.”

The benefactors who kept the doors open at the National Gallery deserve thanks. Injecting a little sanity into a mad world always helps, especially in Washington.