Art

I guess I'll start by saying that my mom and Ms. Bryant were right about art. My mom always tried to push me towards art, telling me how wonderful it is and that I would learn to love art if I just gave it a chance, but I never really cared much for it. I mean yeah I saw some art painting that were good and very pretty but they never blew me away. They were just there. Then before my trip Ms. Bryant and I were talking one day after church and she told me that the art in Europe makes the art in the states look like garbage. I didn't really think she was right, after all art is art right? Well maybe not...

My first dose of great art was at Windsor Castle during orientation. The church at Windsor Castle has some of the most magnificent marble sculptures I have ever seen. Once sculpture depicted a group of mourners by a tomb of a king, all covered head to toe by sheets. It is done so well that it looks like you could reach out, pull the sheets off the mourners and see their faces underneath. It doesn't even look like its marble but actual cloth, just incredible!

I enrolled in a western art class because I needed to sign up for one more class to complete my schedule and it was either take an art class or take some sort of literature nonsense (yes I see the irony of calling literature nonsense when my grammar is apparently not the best). The class it set up like this: one week we have a class with an art history professor discussing, well, art history of course. Then on the alternating weeks we have class with an artist who teaches us about certain aspect of art, like linear perspective or surface geometry, and then we go to an art gallery with him and draw from one of the paintings we see. That's right, I get to show off my wonderful drawing ability! Even better, our homework is to do another drawing on our own! Yay! All the drawing we do is based on real art from any of the galleries in London. We sit in front of whichever painting we choose in the gallery and try and draw the main bits. It's hard enough not being the best at drawing without comparing your own drawing to a world famous painting. That just comes with the territory I guess. I decided to wander around the National Gallery to see if I could find a piece of art that had strong linear perspective aspects (the theme of the week for class). While wandering around I came to new conclusions about art and I thought it only fair to share them with you all. ($20 says my mom prints this out and hangs it on the fridge as proof of my new appreciation for art and so it can be easily referenced if I ever say anything negative about art in front of her again)

Early renaissance and Impressionism are probably my two favorite periods in art. I love the history and the religious theme of the early renaissance pieces. Themes that I have actually had to explain to my classmates that never went to Sunday school or got all of their knowledge of Christianity from the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code. Because most of the art was commissioned by the church to help teach Christianity to illiterate people, the art is, in a way, art for dummies. The illiterate people needed to be able to understand who the characters in the painting were and what was going on just by context clues. So themes like the Virgin Mary always wearing blue emerged. It gives the whole gallery a feeling of uniformity, like all the painters were on the same page, which I think is very neat.

As for Impressionism, I don't know what makes a blurry painting so beautiful (no point in arguing with me on that one, they're blurry), but some of them really are spectacular. I actually have a theory that all impressionist painters don't know they're painting in that style. They're just normal painters with extreme near nearsightedness (come on think about it, it makes complete sense). They're painting what they think they're seeing which is out of focus! The only obnoxious part about impressionist paintings is that when looking at them you must first walk up close enough to read the information plaque besides the painting then back up far enough till the image makes sense. They should just put the plaque about 10 feet in front of the painting to make everyone's lives easier. I will never understand the people who walk around the impressionist gallery standing within a foot of the rope at all times. I did it for a few minutes just to see what it was like and it's terrible! Every painting looks like chunks of paint stuck to the wall, they don't look like anything from that close up. These people clearly know less about art than me which is embarrassing.

"No hold on Charles! We came here to read about your completely correct views on life, NOT your opinion flip flopping! This isn't like you to change your opinion!" The first thing I have to say is relax reader. Didn't I tell you to do that already? Now just stay calm because my previous opinion is still partially intact when it comes to modern art. That stuff just makes no sense.

  

I mean come on this is just silly. Anyone with paint and a ruler could do that.

So have no fear my reader! My opinions are still intact and all is right with the world so you can rest easy. 

Mom, it looks like you were right... maybe there is something to this art thing after all, though I'm probably going to stick with economics if that's ok.

Long Live the King