europe trip part 3
tried a new route. cycled to ntu for the first time today. or more like yesterday since its already so early in the morning. well designed campus. like the idea of a mini-chinese style park in front of the historical building dats nows the chinese heritage centre. its quite fun but challenging cycling the campus coz there alot of slopes. i’ll haf plenty of time still to explore the whole campus inside out.
the season finale for the europe trip mini series will b dedicated to the art i’ve seen in paris. the louvre has a non-exhaustive collection of renaissance, baroque n all art up till realism. dis is where the orsay takes over wif realism, symbolism, impressionism n post impressionism. from here, the pompidou centre takes up the rest wif expressionism, fauvism, surrealism, pop art, minimalism, performance n conceptual art. so i count myself very lucky to b the pilgrim dat has managed to haf seen almost all major works of art dat we’ve covered in art history first hand. its wad adeline wd call orgasmic.
never underestimate the size of the louvre. medieval, egyptian, islamic n wad not kind of art they also haf. sculpture up till the late 18th cent also haf. the museum itself actually is an architectural masterpiece in itself having initially served as a royal palace. we spent an entire day there n in less than abt 4 hrs we were so saturated wif art dat we cd vomit. major leonardos, raphaels n michelangelos r there. all the celebrities from all the early art movts r here too. if u r a fan of european representational art, u r going to leave never the same again. walking thru all the galleries alone can kill ur feet. by lunch we were searching for every opp to plonk our ass on any available empty seat. even the gallery security’s chair also can. the art just seems to go on foever n ever n ever. if i had the time i wd want to spend an entire mth to just go there once/twice a week to just study five or six paintings each session n i’ll b the happiest guy in town.
coronation of napoleon by jaques-louis david was quite memorable.
now moving on to the orsay nearby.
dis feels unbelievable. u noe i used to think dat the whole art history thing was just a whole lot of crap, wad wif ‘a shift from the perceptual to the conceptual’, n ‘presenting us wif images akin to electric shocks dat r dependent on extra mundane logic’. all dat stuff we studied suddenly seemed to make perfect sense now. in fact they r actually quite profound n insightful. looking at the courbets, manets, monets, degases, van goghs, gauguins, seurats n renoirs, wad i take home is wad i think is the full experience the artist intends u to haf when u stand in front of an original. n the brushtrokes r very educational to me. they r very economical but yet manage to get ‘there’ still. n yes standing in front of a monet is like really experiencing natural sunlight.
got to also see some major rodins too. dat guy realli has a knack for giving his bronzes a liquid feeling although the material is so hard. walking around the sculptures u can also almost feel the sculptures literally moving. such is the mastery in which he positions n composes his sculptures. the gates of hell r a mind blowing experience. its like well realli standing n gazing into the abyss with the liquid figures swirling n twisting in front of ur very eyes. i haf to give my hat off to dis guy.
the design for the orsay itself is also very original. formerly a train station, n a very beautiful one at dat, converted it into a museum coz the louvre, big as it already was, was getting cramped. they renovated n updated it quite recently. however, the effect of the orsay is strangely neither backward looking nor futuristic n so in this sense timeless. the seamless blend of the galleries wif the iron framework of the original structure provides the ideal turn-of-the-century setting to all this art.
visited montmarte. french for mount of martyrs. hotbod of artistic activity in the 19 n 20 century wif artists like dali, cezanne, renoir, van gogh, picasso, degas, seurat, corot, manet, monet n ahya half of those artists we study in art history. saw some of their ex-houses n also a dali museum. also home to the original moulin rouge. now montmarte is cheap art centre by day, seedy red light district by night. its ironic coz the blood of the early christian martyrs spilled on dis mount is supposed to make the place holy ground.
montmarte is crowned by the white church on top dat commands a breathtaking view of paris. i remember its interior for its beauty n simplicity, which gives a very soothing n peaceful effect.
fast forward into the 20th cent. pollocks, pop art lichenstein, brancusi, kadinsky, warhol. pollock, donald judd, rauschenburg, nam june paik n all dat at pompidou centre, their museum of modern art. u name it they have it. realli funky building dat contrasts perfectly wif old paris. s’pore can’t copy dis though. it will b disastrous coz there aren’t enuff old buildings to pull it off.
yep dats all. til next time. ciao.
alvin ong dozed and watched the sawdust trampled night @ 6:39 AM
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