Had my midterm for History of The Invention of Avant Garde Art yesterday...The study of the invention of Avant-Garde being mostly embedded in Impressionism, it was surprisingly something I am mostly familiar with already. Go here if you're into it: deyoung.famsf.com/

The de Young's main exhibit right now is "The Birth of Impressionism", tying so directly into my class that I've decided my instructor built his curriculum around this exhibit. Although I am not a huge fan of Impressionism, this show is worth seeing if you are into 19th century history, art, or Paris in general. On loan from the Musee d'Orsay, there are many recognizable works as well as less recognizable yet equally well painted(as well as some not so well painted) pieces. "Whistler's Mother"(Arrangement in Grey and Black no. 1, 1871) is the most expensive, well known work there, insured for over $200m or some ghastly number. True to the impressionist movement, Manet is the focal point for this show. I can only say that I wish there were more shown by this man. The three rooms following this become increasingly Impressionism, focusing mostly on Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pissarro and Degas(Who didn't consider himself an Impressionist). The whole thing ends with a small but packed gift shop, a great hurrah to the shifting capitalism that embodied 19th c. Paris. Some works I enjoyed:


James Tissot, The Dreamer(Summer Evening), 1871

Gustave Moreau, Galatea, 1880

Gustave Courbet, Nude Woman with Dog, 1861

Alfred Georges Stevens, The Bath, 1867


On a side note, I found Whistler's Mother thoroughly without joy, beauty or likability. It was as its title states-gray and black-and boring. That is not to say that there aren't very many good paintings in black and gray, I just don't find this one appealing at all and struggle to see why it's so well known and discussed other than its famous author. There is an attempt by Whistler to devoid the portrait of familial emotion and I think it is achieved. Whether this achievement serves much purpose other than the painter's satisfaction, I can't say, other than Whistler must have been very pleased. Well here it is in case you forgot:

This painting by Edouard Manet disgusted the patrons and critics of the Paris Salon of 1865. Entitled Olympia, Manet depicts a prostitute in full nakedness, candidly giving the viewer face. A face devoid of 19th century fluff and instead replacing it with a self awareness of the transaction about to occur, this awareness coming through with a fragile stoicism and little tenderness. The problematic case of prostitution during 19th c. Paris is well known and this painting does nothing to hide that. Olympia forces the decidedly male viewer to acknowledge this issue and his own previously passive stance of the exchange of sex and money, the attachments of class and health, social status and the physical body.

'"We shall define as prostitute only that woman who, publicly and without love, gives herself to the first comer for a pecuniary remuniration; to which formula we shall add: and has no other means of existence besides the temporary relations she entertains with a more or less large number of individuals. ' From which it follows--and it seems to me the truth--that the prostitute implies first venality and second absence of choice. Ah! I know very well that by thus restricting the scope of the word, we end up reserving all our indulgence for those women-without-virtue who are the most fortunate, the privileged, the inexcusable, and at the same time we sanction the existence of a sort of proletariat of love over whom can be exercised with the impunity all kinds of harshness and tyranny." -Henri Turot

http://www.londonmiles.com/The-Next-Generation.html

Sometimes living feels like nothing more than the struggle and desire to look, see and piece together fragments from the clash of what is real and what is generated only through my own head. I continue to define what is and what is not important to me, the gap continuously shifting. How do you discern between the crap that is weighing you down and the crap that you can't live without when more often than not they both make you feel the same?