A Packed Saturday

It was a pretty packed Saturday. I went to Novena in the morning, then to the Science Centre for the Da Vinci exhibition as well as the Van Gogh film at the Omni-Theatre, before proceeding for a dinner and durian feast, ending with drinks at a cosy cafe in the East Coast.

The Da Vinci exhibition was an eye-opener indeed! A pity photograpy was not allowed. I was able to see a timeline of his life and the major events that took place during the Renaissnace period. his paintings and inventions, and how he helped the French court.

The highlight of the event was The Last Supper and Mona Lisa of course! Apparently, The Last Supper was commissioned to be painted as a depiction of Jesus with the traitor Judas Iscariot in the picture. There was a short documentary on the colour scheme and how Jesus was meant to be the centre focus of the entire painting.

The documentary on Mona Lisa addressed certain mysteries on who she really was and the original colour scheme of the background. Apparently, the background was more bluish, but through the years, after being exposed to environmental factors, the colours faded and now it became more greenish, hence people always thought Da Vinci meant the entire colour scheme to be greenish and black.

The Van Gogh film is good too! It told of his life and paintings, including his self-portraits and how and where he got his inspiration. I always wonder why we do not seem to have artists of the calibre of these two men nowadays?

How Many Can You Name?

I find this a rather interesting portrait. Amazing how someone manages to capture just about every outstanding character in history in one portrait! Last count, I was able to name about fifty. Some I can recognise the faces but not the names, and I am pretty sure there are many I can name but cannot recognise the faces!

[Addendum : The answer key is here. So how many did you get right? ;-p]

Exhibitions!

There are a few interesting exhibitions around. Besides, after living here all my life, it is time I check out the other museums, even though I have not been to the History Museum after it was renovated. What an irony that I used to do the leases for all the museums in my previous company, yet I have never been to any!

First will be the exhibition of the Kangxi Emperor at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Then it will be the display of Peranakan culture at the Peranakan Museum (where else?!). It is time I actually visit the Philatelic Museum too. I have been collecting stamps all my life, so I should go see how the old stamps look like.

Then it will be the Da Vinci exhibition, which is not at the Museum, but the Science Centre. This is something I have always wanted to see, especially since there will be a Mona Lisa display too! Finally I should go check out the Mint Museum of Toys, where I can see the display of all my favourite toys when I was young (and even now), plus I heard there is a good cafe there!

Why did I not go see these earlier? Maybe because in the deepest recesses of my mind, I hope to go see these places with someone special? But now that that is not feasible, I may as well go on my own. Afterall, why should I give up nice and interesting things just because I am on my own?

Advance Art Appreciation

I started class again last night. As usual, the first lesson would be on how to score for assignments and what is required in the first assignment. I have looked through the first assignment, and it seems pretty easy. Just an analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 157 and an argumentative essay on euthanasia (hot topic amongst many lecturers).

Interesting! Hopefully I can ace it! I need to ace this module in order to keep my grades up! Unfortunately, last night’s lecture was on Advanced Art Appreciation, so the entire lecture was on abstract paintings and how to “see” and “interpret” them!

Now, all I know about abstract art is a whole mass of colours and patches and lines. In other words, a big messy glob! Abstract art, Picasso style, touches on feelings and what you feel when you see the picture, but other kinds of abstract art is just patterns and more patterns.

How in the world am I supposed to analyse that? As it is, I emerged from the lecture feeling more lost than before! Oh no, this is only the first lecture, thus supposed to be the easiest! If I cannot even understand the first lecture, it will be a big problem the rest of the semester!

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Art Appreciation

The first lecture today covers a bit of art appreciation as well. It was about the same as last year. Even the lecturer is the same, except this time round, he seems to be more enthusiastic about the subject, so he infected everyone with his enthusiasm.

Actually appreciating the arts is very subjective. Certain people will deem certain things as nice, others will hate them. Besides, art and music or theatre appreciation used to belong to the more "cultured" people. Layman can never understand, or so they think. As a result, the arts and culture is not widely recognised or appreciated here.

To me, I feel that the general public here do not give themselves a chance. How would they know they will not be able to appreciate? I gave myself a chance so many years back and went to watch my first play - "Les Miserables", and loved it! I still love it now! Initially I thought I would not be able to appreciate as well, but I was wrong.

Same goes for art. For someone like me who has had no experience in art, except that brief period of time when I was about six when my parents sent me for art lessons, it had been rather difficult for me to really see art in a different context then what it was - a mess. I have no artistic talent. People who know me know I am more of a music person than an art person.

But when I went to secondary school, my art teacher taught me how to see beyond what the eye can see. She taught me to see beyond my soul, and feel for the object I was going to draw. As a result, I drew my first still life. Although I still failed, but at least that picture looked like a picture instead of the big mess I was used to drawing.

After that, I got to know the more famous artists and sculptors and am amazed by how well they could draw. They could bring a portrait or landscape to life. Seeing a certain piece, one can actually visualise what the artist was going through, his mood, his feeling, the reason behind the piece. And that itself is a rather heartwarming experience. Now, I am so glad I gave myself a chance and not shun anything to do with the arts!

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!!!!!