modernart

OK, I realize that for about a week this has been an incomplete blog. I don't know what happened but I'm just getting around to fixing it.

My thoughts on Modern art-

We went to the Tate Modern in London this past weekend and the most interesting thing there was the conversations I overheard. Well, the conversations I eavesdropped on.
First I find it funny how many people I overheard growl in frighteningly bitter tones how much they detested the whole of it and the fact that it was even called art, THIS wasn't art. Silly, I bet they've never held a brush.
Regardless, I realize that many of those were probably either, like many people in our group, forced to be there and therefore bitter to begin with, or present only because it was an art museum. People are supposed to visit art museums when traveling the world. So here they were, fulfilling their duty as mighty tourists of the world to see it all and do it all... and grace this gallery with their presence.
Those opinions I most definitely didn't choose to listen on, as it gives me a headache to be in the presence of loud ignorance for too long and most were stated at an uncomfortably loud decibel level anyway.
I found it to be amusing, which is good because the other reaction could have turned me to swell to monstrous proportions, grow fangs and eat them whole. It's a natural reaction.

However, it was the others that saved me.
I feel like there are many good conversations to overhear in a normal art gallery, talk of light and post impressionism, all interesting and worthy, but it is the type of people in the Modern art galleries that are really worthy of note. (at least the people who aren't there with Rick Steves)

It was in the Rothko room (hardly any light) sitting on a bench trying to frame the piece like a person taking a mental picture to get rid of the rest of the world as I hear the child sitting next to me-

"Is it a ghost mum?"
[laughing] "No dear, it isn't a ghost."

me[with the realization of horror and confusion]

-but isn't it?

To Thee, "Two Crabs", I sing.

Crabs. this week the topic is crabs. Crabs are my new favorite (or flavor of the week if you will)
I found myself overflowing with praise of Van Gogh's painting Two Crabs at the National Gallery in London two weeks ago. Never heard of it? It's because it hasn't been over exposed. I dig Van Gogh's use of colors in this painting. So vivid, so saturated. Unlike most of his gouache-like hues, baby blue, baby pink, baby yellow, it's my worst nightmare. He uses them well, I have no right to complain.
Regardless there's joy in my heart just thinking about it. Second to Carravaggio, which I went in prepared to be captivated by, Two Crabs has won a spot for the National Gallery in my heart. I want to touch it.
I came across a bronze (I think) crab in the Ashmolean as I perambulated it's room of Acquisitions last week, and thats really when I declared my new love for crabs. Crabs are really quite intriguing usually very colorful, makes a great subject for a painting, I don't know why more people haven't taken hold of the idea. I have. Expect big things from me, and expect crustaceans.

This picture does damage to the hues' actual vibrance. No justice is served.



I spent my time in the Ashmolean last week studying a painting located in one of the rooms on the upper level titled "Head of an Old Man" by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri. I found it interesting because it encompassed two of my main infatuations right now.
Firstly, the subject of the painting is an older man with a large untamed beard. In my photography endeavors and as I consider the art of photojournalism I find myself constantly wishing I had the gumption to as the old men I see to let me take their portrait. I find the wrinkles to be beautiful and the age to be a conceptual idea relating to wisdom, and if a beard is involved, the larger, the bushier, and the more colors it has the more fascinating I find it. I feel like age is a subject I'm drawn to, especially in my photography, but I feel the main reason is that I miss my granddads.

Secondly, (both of these things happen to be relating to my recent involvement in photography, specifically portraiture.) I have been inspired to begin to try working in the catagory of Expressive Portraits. This painting is very expressive and is so successful in capturing the emotion through the man's pose and expression. His aged hand rests on his breast and his eyes are gazing upward causing a wrinkle in his brow. There is also heavy emphasis on shadow and light, another of my favorite styles. This painting is the painted materialization of my ideas for my next series of portraits. If only I had time to work on it.

blog 2- After the National Gallery

I was very thankful that I had the chance to go to the museums in London on Friday. I realize that it is a blessing and I at least, if no one else, was very blessed by it. I have found that the longer I have studied art the more my outlook on certain aspects of art have changed. It actually takes me less time to get through a gallery than it might have a few years ago because it seems like before I felt as though I had to, whether I really liked a piece or not, spend a certain amount of time in front of it analyzing it and trying to make myself like it, because I'm supposed to. As I've developed my own personal style and personal preferences I have begun to understand more about what there is to appreciate in art, regardless of whether I'm moved by it or not. As I went through the gallery I was able to appreciate a greater amount of art while spending the most time on pieces that I found personally moving. I found that while others awed over a painting because it was a Seurat, or a Monet I was able to discern why I was (or wasn't) drawn to it and I was able to appreciate it at face value instead of the value of namesake. So I guess that what I am saying is that I don't like art as much (or as much art) since I've come to understand what it is to be an artist. (I say understand because I will indefinitely consider myself not as an artist, but an artisan. We're nowhere near finished and may, in fact, never be.)
I am trying hard not to consider it dismal that we spend our class period in the Ashmolean, who's collections will quickly become dated, instead of having the good fortune of spending our days in the National Gallery. Not to discredit the Ashmolean because I've already found an appreciation for its contents, but it is the National Gallery's lure of limitlessness of that is so enticing.
I would leave England a much better person if that were the case.
Not that it's impossible without it, the hope is that it's not.