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印象派,骄傲
弱势群体已经注意到并改变了他们曾经受伤害和嘲笑的词语含义:“酷儿”已经成为了LGBT群体的一个积极的标签;“书呆子”和“怪胎”不再是侮辱,而是变成了荣誉(这要部分归功于该Gleeks),“荡妇游行”的参与者都试图去重新阐释这个词,而茶党运动的成员……好吧,这是一个坏榜样。但这个“当前”语言上同情的倾向不是现代才有的…… 印象派是在长达10年的斗争之后才广为人知的。在19世纪的法国,艺术的尊重只能由美术学院的承认和他们的作品在沙龙的展示,或在巴黎每年的展览获得。这种新的艺术运动对于那些古板的老头来说过于新潮—— 马奈草地上的午餐并没有达到级别,因为他大胆地描绘一个一丝不挂的女士在野餐中嬉戏。我无法想象如果让他们画哈里王子的拉斯维加斯之旅,会画成什么样? 一个微小的希望出现在1863年,拿破仑三世被震惊了,当时那些质量艺术品被放在一边,而就在官方沙龙旁边开了一个被拒绝的作品展。这些艺术家们比官方沙龙获得了更多的参观者,但大多数人来是为了嘲笑这些骗人的“艺术家”和他们的奇怪的画。再次展览的请求被拒绝,直到1874年,他们决定把事情掌握在自己手中…… 三十艺术家,包括莫奈、雷诺阿、毕沙罗、西斯莱、塞尚、德加和莫利索在内,参加了一个私人展览。这个展览对于许多人来说还是很可笑。路易·勒鲁瓦写了一个讽刺的评论,创造了“印象派”这个词来嘲讽莫奈的画《日出·印象》。这个词开始流行起来,本来是嘲笑的绰号成为了这群人的光荣的称号。当印象派从法国传播出去,为现代艺术奠定基础,甚至成为19世纪法国艺术的永恒的遗产,勒鲁瓦一定哭笑不得。 因此,对于那些目前陷入困境的人包括:哈里王子 ——“赤裸王子”,托德·阿金 ——“合法者”,我的建议是学学印象派的书籍,用骄傲来面对嘲笑。我敢肯定,朱利安·阿桑奇可以积极地面对“胆小鬼”,“工具”或“网络恐怖者”。
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Forest of Fontainebleau – Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, 1830
Click on the image to appreciate in High Resolution every stroke of the Master Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot!!
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What Boston Loves
In an attempt to manipulate the power of the Internet, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston used crowdsourcing to select pieces for its ongoing exhibition, Boston Loves Impressionism. During the month of January, the MFA held an online vote every week, garnering up to 41,000 votes. This exhibition explores the predominating artistic taste of Bostonians. It neither focuses on the Impressionist movement nor on the individual artists, but rather highlights the connection Boston feels towards each piece. The top three selected works are undeniable favorites. Van Gogh’s Houses at Auvers received the most votes, surpassing Claude Monet’s Water Lilies by at least 1,000 total votes. The only sculpture in…
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Art: I know It When I See It
Last year, Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ reignited the old “What is art?” discussion. Serrano shocked the art world in 1987 with a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of his urine. He again sparked controversy in September 2012 when Piss Christ was featured at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in New York. The photograph not only shocked the religious communities who were offended by the desecration of a holy symbol, Serrano’s work also forced even the most open-minded to ask, “Is this art?” A quick Google search of the definition of art yields this: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual…
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Olympia in Venice
Remember the first time you went away from home for an extended period of time? Your mother made sure you packed warm socks and clean pants, even if it was going to be 40 degrees Celsius in your final destination. She called and wrote you often, making sure you were eating your vegetables and brushing your teeth. She loved and worried about you. I imagine this is what the Musée d’Orsay is going through at the moment, having sent one of its most precious babies off to Italy for the summer.
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Impressionism: a Disney movie without all of the singing
Nature? Good. Romance? I can dig it. Impressionism? Bite me. You know what Impressionism is? It’s a beautiful, made-up, dream-like view at an otherwise harsh, sometimes cruel reality. Impressionism is to art viewers what Disney movies are to the generation of 20-somethings that grew up expecting perfect hair, woodland friends, and Prince Charming – not to mention the desire to go around singing about everything all of the damn time.
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Join the Club
If I were to ask you what Camille Pissarro, Dermot Morgan (Ted), Abraham, Christmas, William, Steve Martin, God, Time, and Marlon Brando have in common, would you be able to come up with the solution? I’ll give you a couple of seconds… Father! They have all been referred to as “Father”. Many people (especially the British amongst us) will have heard of, and spent many an evening laughing at, Father Ted. Fathers Christmas and Time are personifications, both of whom appear in the Chronicles of Narnia interestingly enough. Father William is the hero of Lewis Carol’s satirical poem in Alice in Wonderland, and Father Abraham and God the Father are…
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Beaux-Arts, fromage, guillotines, and other French concepts
I started learning French about ten months ago. It was an idea that I toyed with for the ridiculously large span of one to thirteen years prior (when it was offered in middle school and my dearest mother thought Spanish would prove more useful in my future and made me study it instead – I will neither agree or disagree with that point all of these years later). Initially this venture, ten months ago, started out of spite – I was surrounded by French speakers and could never get a word in edgewise because I never knew what the hell they were talking about. I planned to learn it the…
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Impressionably Fashionable
Where do you go when you are looking for the latest fashion designs? Or want to see what is à la mode on the High Street? Or perhaps, just want to see what’s going on in the city? Well, the internet. Right? Or a fashion magazine. I think that if we were to be suddenly transported to the 19th Century we would be in for a big culture shock! No internet, no modern conveniences…and yet, society of the 19th Century, in some respects, is considered to be more cultured and sophisticated than our own. More genteel, certainly! Impressionists such as Renoir, Cassatt, and Monet: these were the people…
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Let’s Be Alone Together
You know what one of my favourite movies of all time is? Closer. It’s dark, it’s dirty, it’s intimate, it’s lonely, it’s sad, it’s beautiful, it’s true. “Anna’s” photography exhibit is one I would have visited again and again – you know, if it had been real – especially the image of “Alice”. What other artist makes me feel all of the same emotions? The Impressionist/Realist, Gustave Caillebotte. Caillebotte’s On the Pont de l’Europe (below), to me anyway, represents a man that has lost something near to him, whether he threw it away or it crumbled into a pile of rubble, the point is that he stands alone on this…





























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