living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Monday, September 29, 2003 An afternoon at LACMA We went there for French masterworks from Pushkin Museum, Moscow. See some Matisse for the first time, like Gold fish and La Dance-unbelievable combination of colors, rushing all blood into your brain. By the way, my favorite Matisse so far is in Buffalo! Also some decent collection of impressionism, including this one, this one, and this one. Well, if you've seen a lot of French paintings at Louvre, Orsay or Washington Art Gallery, you would feel this exhibition is a great addition to your experience of impressionism. And of course, no exhibition should go without Picasso and Van Gogh. We see this one, this one and this one today. There are also some old french school at show, like some paintings from Poussin and Jacques-Louis David. The exhibition reminds me of the close western tie Russians used to possess. Zealous aristocrats and Patrons not only collected French paintings, but even had those French painters come over to St. Petersrburg to draw for them. Think about it, going across Siberia! I trully believe art is a universal form of communication. The other special exhibition ended today is works of Modigliani and his poor artist friends in Montaparnasse (Left Bank in Paris) at the beginning of the last century. Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian-born Jew, and learnt classical painting in Italy, then came to Paris and mingled himself with this interntational circle. His numerous portrait works, heavily influenced by African primitive art, have long faces, long noses and blank eyes or one-open-one-close eyes, which are very alien-look, to me. However, it gave all paintings a strong surreal, dream-like touch, though his models were from such a low stratum like cleaning woman, circus clown, servant or peasant. He makes you realize human being, regardless of economic and social class, are all so beautiful in nature. Reportedly, in Picasso's deathbed 60 years later, the name was murmured again and again is "Amedeo Modigliani". Picasso also used to be an active member in Montparnasse, together with Diego Rivera, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Matisse and Chaim Soutine. And that's where Cubism, constructivism, and Fauvism were coming to being. You think French are so avant-garde in everything? Acturally, almost all these modern art forms are innovations of xeno-artists from Italy, Spain, Russia and Mexico. But without Paris, I doubt if they can make it. LACMA was the most unlike museum I ever went. Huge outdoor cafteria crowded with thousands of people, life Jazz performance brings in the spirit of carnival since it is so loud and hilarious. You would think you come to a park or beach for sunshine instead of to a museum. posted by lmeimei @12:25 AM| permanent link| | |
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