I finished the Paulo Coehlo book about the girl who wanted to die - writte in 1998. There were fascinating discussions about madness and conformity and the idea that it is considered mad to follow your instincts and loves and desires for life instead of being in conformity with what is expected. And the lead character tries to commit suicide, and is saved and brought to an asylum, where she is told that the pills she took to kill herself created an irreversible damage to her heart and she has only a few days to live.
She ends up (after going through some satisfaction with the job about to be done for her) learning to enjoy life as she has never before, and falling in love, and escaping with the so called schizophrenic who it turns out is also more sane than those who put him there, and they appear to be treating each day as a gift and are surprised that she is not dead the next morning.
But then, we find out that the doctor has lied to her about her illness in order to experiment with the concept (that to me does not appear all that new or innovative) that by facing death, a person often is forced to finally confront life and deal with the daily enjoyment of life in a way never possible before
So what else is new? Now isn't this just a pat and old idea? Isn't that the reason that I started spending so much money and runnng off to France? (after confronting that period of time when I had breast cancer, lost bothmy mom and dad - one from cancer and the other an accident, almost lost Brett, got divorced, and saw my law firm break up and formed a new one.)...................the combination, a death of sort - or at least the possibility of death - or endings - or both.
This is such a common part of human nature.
And Coeholo is considered so brilliant and his voice so fresh and new - he has such a large following.
Ok - the writing was good, and the book held me all the way to the end, but then, that rabbit out of a hat or deus ex machina thing at the end "She's really not sick". Give me a break!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Matisse - Reinvention
Yesterday, after a lovely and unexpectedly gourmet lunch at the new cafe' in the modern wign of the Art Institute, I slowly wended my way around the new Matisse exhibit. It took a bit over an hour, even with careful reading of each of the wall descriptions, and close observation of each of the larger paintings that I learned had been reworked and scraped and repainted and re thought so many times. That was the fascinating part - that, and the fact that this watershed period of Matisse's life as a painter occurred during a wartime period when art was probably the most difficult to accomplish - what with moving, and shortages of necessities, and such.
In one room, there wss a display of small drawings - portraits - that Matisse had sold during that period to make a living.
But the largest part of the exhibit was the display of how he moved from bright color and somewhat greater representation in his art, to just a few colors, and different methods, drawing on Cubism but never actually going that direction, including the reworking of a painting, or a sculpture, or doing it over and over on different canvases, during that period of 1913 to 1917 until he felt it was not exactly "right", perhaps, but at least more "right" than it had been several iterations earlier - witness up close the extra layers of paint taking away - deleting portions of a face, changing the outer dimensions to render it a bit more abstract - or in one case, the scraping away of long curved lines of the dark paint to create white curved lines emanating from and around the figure which melded with and enhanced the figure.
I did not buy the book - $45 for just the paperback vedrsion - but I am rethinking that. I just read online that the book is very unusual in the care with which it describes this entire metamorphosis.
It also shows the xrays of the paintings, to truly see the various stages of development and redevelopment.
I will go back to the exhibit and see the x ray evidence in the one room I missed - the hands on information room that apparently accompanies the exhibit. It was 5:00 , I had entered at about 10 minutes to 4:00 , and the museum closed at 5:00. But I'm a member, it is two bl0ocks away, and there is no reason that I should not revisit it a couple of times.
From here, it will go to the MOMA in July.
I think I need to write an article about this exhibit, from the standpoint of someone who is far from an expert - who, in fact, had never known very much at all about Matisse previously. I had to read one of Arnie Greenberg's articles in Bonjour Paris to get some background (and purchase a small $5.00 book in the gift shop and read it during my meal) so that I had at least some background.
Nevertheless, the exhibit was not just an exhibit, and not just the kind of learning experience that such art exhibits always are, but a very different learning experiend - one in which I really was fascinated each step of the way, and had not desire at all (as I often do) to skip any part of either the art on display, or the explanatory material on the walls.
In one room, there wss a display of small drawings - portraits - that Matisse had sold during that period to make a living.
But the largest part of the exhibit was the display of how he moved from bright color and somewhat greater representation in his art, to just a few colors, and different methods, drawing on Cubism but never actually going that direction, including the reworking of a painting, or a sculpture, or doing it over and over on different canvases, during that period of 1913 to 1917 until he felt it was not exactly "right", perhaps, but at least more "right" than it had been several iterations earlier - witness up close the extra layers of paint taking away - deleting portions of a face, changing the outer dimensions to render it a bit more abstract - or in one case, the scraping away of long curved lines of the dark paint to create white curved lines emanating from and around the figure which melded with and enhanced the figure.
I did not buy the book - $45 for just the paperback vedrsion - but I am rethinking that. I just read online that the book is very unusual in the care with which it describes this entire metamorphosis.
It also shows the xrays of the paintings, to truly see the various stages of development and redevelopment.
I will go back to the exhibit and see the x ray evidence in the one room I missed - the hands on information room that apparently accompanies the exhibit. It was 5:00 , I had entered at about 10 minutes to 4:00 , and the museum closed at 5:00. But I'm a member, it is two bl0ocks away, and there is no reason that I should not revisit it a couple of times.
From here, it will go to the MOMA in July.
I think I need to write an article about this exhibit, from the standpoint of someone who is far from an expert - who, in fact, had never known very much at all about Matisse previously. I had to read one of Arnie Greenberg's articles in Bonjour Paris to get some background (and purchase a small $5.00 book in the gift shop and read it during my meal) so that I had at least some background.
Nevertheless, the exhibit was not just an exhibit, and not just the kind of learning experience that such art exhibits always are, but a very different learning experiend - one in which I really was fascinated each step of the way, and had not desire at all (as I often do) to skip any part of either the art on display, or the explanatory material on the walls.
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