Not An Art Connoisseur ....

Further proof that I am weird – I cannot find anyone to discuss art with me! I called up my art major friend to ask him more on the form and composition of abstract art, but he told me that he is not a classical person, and his concept of art is only limited to animation.

I do not even bother calling my close friends as I know how they will react when I asked them about art. My tutorial mates are worse as when the tutor was giving a lesson on the difference between sculpture, still life, abstract and pop art, I am the only one who actually know what she was saying.

When I asked her how to tell the difference between the works of Monet and Van Gogh, and the difference between Pollock and Picasso, the rest of my tutorial mates did not know what I was talking about at all. They have not heard of any of these great artists!

And when I was discussing the vanishing point where the perspective lines meet the horizon line of a painting, the tutor was nodding with a smile, but the rest of the tutorial mates drew blank looks. Did they even attend the lecture I wonder?

I was thinking of organizing a trip to the Art Museum, although the pieces there are limited to local context, but my classmates all told me to count them out. So now I have to analyse still life, abstract art and the works of the great Masters all by myself. How I wish I can make a trip down to the Paris Louvre Museum and see some real great pieces for myself.

I hear people complaining that they do not know what is going on in the topic and they will likely fail the assignment. If they do not know then go read up! Humanities is the type of subject that one cannot rely on just textbook and lectures to learn. There is a lot of reading up on our own.

I was not born knowing who Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse or Leonardo Da Vinci were either, and neither was I taught these in school. All these knowledge comes from books.

In fact, Art was one subject I scored the worst in as I cannot draw, cannot differentiate between the darker and lighter tones, cannot do the embossment in black-and-white still life, and cannot sketch a portrait.

But I have always admired people who could draw, so whenever I came across a piece of good artwork, I would gaze at it and make sure I remember who created that. Although I know some of the great artists ever lived and which pieces they created, I still cannot fully analyse how the entire piece works, ie the colour tone, the texture, the composition of the various colours, etc.

It is not too bad if it is a piece of landscape painting like Monet’s “Waterlilies”, or a piece of portrait like Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or the famous American portrait “Whistler’s Mother”, or a dark piece like Van Gogh’s “Starry Starry Night”, but when it comes to abstract art like Pollock’s “Summertime”, I get totally lost.

This art appreciation topic is killing everyone. It is not as if I am not enjoying my lessons, because I am, but this is such a subjective topic. You cannot really come up with a good answer, but then, you cannot really not come up with an answer as well. It all depends on your own analysis.

But if I still do not come up with a good analysis, I am liable to fail my very first assignment of the course. What a way to start the course! Luckily this week is the last week for the topic, as we will be starting on Sonnets next week. Yeah! But meanwhile, I NEED HELP!!!!!