Life Imitates Bechtle

When I exit an art exhibit or a film, one means by which I find myself gauging its impact on me is the extent that the world seems transformed by the aesthetic of what I had just been immersed in. Does the neighborhood outside the museum somehow correspond visually with the paintings I’d just spent hours staring at? Does the street outside the theater look as if framed and lit by the filmmakers? Does the impression kick in immediately, or take a beat to surface — and how long does the halo effect last? Today, when I left the De Young Museum — where I went specifically to check out a show of prints and drawings by the photorealist Robert Bechtle — I wandered out of Golden Gate Park to Fulton Street, where I was immediately faced with what could very well have been a Bechtle painting itself: the old-school car, the late-afternoon light, the perfect geometries, the muted palette. San Francisco is, of course, a city from which Bechtle drew vast inspiration throughout his career, so the deck was stacked for such an occurence, but the appearance of this scene was striking, nonetheless. Photorealism brings a certain complexity to the idea of life imitating art, especially when the art in the first place was such a perceptive depiction of life here.