восток

In my art history classes, when henri mattise is mentioned, he is synonymous with orientalism. Meaning he was a 'westerner' projecting false assumptions onto another culture pretty much. Now this can be true, but as far as history goes, I think that the true can be said about historians looking back in to the past. The past is murky, and much is projected on the past about how we think. Not nessisarily how we thing 'now' but our temperment. I bet optimistic people have an optimistic view of the past while pessimistic the opposite. Yet, most art historians do no welcome this point to their lectures. This makes me suspect on the things the teach me. I have lost much respect of them in terms of me accepting what they tell me.

макаронные изделия

When I was little and went to church. They used to sing "Hosanna in the highest" in every mass. I used to think they sang "Lasagna in the highest." Even today Catholicism doesn't make sense. What difference if the church praises pasta and shuns homosexuality. It doesn't seem like there's any reason to any teaching besides "I said so." It seems like the world would still go on if there was a ban on pasta and support of gay marriage. It's almost like they just throw darts at the dartboard to make up morals. Hosanna in the highest is just as absurd to me as Lasagna in the highest.

Ideas

For some reason I had this idea thinking about Christianity. It occurred to me that human minds could reason as follows:

I believe in God and Jesus. God is the creator of the world and he made me and everything else.

Assumed rightly or wrongly, no matter how much validity a statement has, it is still yet an idea. The existence of this statement seems to be highly dependent on the existence of the imagination. Or to sound less mystical, the ability to generate thoughts. There was a point I was going to make about religion and ideas, but I lost track of the thought. Maybe I will recover the notion in future times.

Maybe it was actually something like this. That even if you prove a statement right, the proof only goes as far to say the idea is correct. And maybe I think I was trying to say that ideas are made in the mind seperate from anything that would be a physical reality. The final assumption would be what would be the significance of proving an idea right?

род

Gender seems like an interesting topic. I hear a lot of 'gender roles' in art. Feminism seems to be concerned that there are men and that there are women. More over I would suspect much of Feminism is not about equality but of placing stereotypes in which the particular feminist agrees fits 'womanhood'

The thing is, I don't see a separation of man and woman. Generally I think it is assumed that if someone has a particular set of reproduction organs, that is their gender. But. If a person is infertile they do not loose their gender classification. One is not more of a gender by having more of a particular hormone. Really, the only difference between man and woman is that people choose there to be. Although this is not a conscious choice many of the time, once taken in consideration, one can change their mind. I would think that if feminists where truly interested in equality, then they would drop the whole femin part of the ism and just say stop judging people. I also hold this opinion to the way race is handled. I believe the best way for people to stop discriminating people against if they are african american is to stop considering your self as an african american and consider youerself a person. The same for women, the same for any other group that feels they are being marginalized. I think it would be better the attack the larger problem of judging people beforehand than to be very specific about a certain 'race' or 'gender'.

слова и вещи

I think a lot of conversations I have where I disagree with people has to do with the separation from words and things. Meaning, words are abstracted ideas of things. But yet these thoughts on words are very young. I can be easily put on my head when talking to someone who is not agreeing or will not even entertain the notion of what I have to say.

Visual art is an interesting thing. Many hold that visual art is like a language. Yet much of the interpreting of the work is largely dealt with in written or spoken language. Personally, I don't like to attach meaning to anything visual I do. I mainly want to deal with the perception of light. Much how when I listen to music, I care little for some explanation of the sounds. I care how the sounds make me feel.

я утомлен

I am learning Russian so I think I'll make all of my titles in Russian. The title today is I am Tired.
There is a minimum amount of thoughts I have to report. Too, sleepy.

Thinking about Identity of Groups

I have this upsetting relationship with art history. It is not a hatred towards history. I find history can be highly interesting to myself. One thing that rubs me the wrong way about the way art history is taught (at least at my university) is the focus of lumping art into movements.

For instance, here is a quote from a reading for my class:
"The Impressionists' discovery of Japanese prints reinforced their interest in the life of the city, but it also marked a momentous intersection between a rich Eastern tradition of portraying urban life and an important climax in the Western tradition."

First of all let me note off topic, this reading contains no images of Japanese prints or Impressionist Paintings. I have a somewhat underdeveloped theory that Art Historians do not actually care that there is an actual image.

But what makes me gnaw my teeth the most is the lumping of artists as Impressionists. Even if they had similar styles of painting, the painters themselves would have most certainly different lifestyles, background, favorite beers, ect. Reading that article leaves me with the feeling all impressionists were deeply inlove with Japanese prints. Which, in my head, seems to have major conflicts. I would reason that surely not every apple bobbing Impressionist loved a Japanese print. Perhaps maybe they had a certain bias against Japanese culture. But I don't know if this is true beause it is not written about. There is little care that people made the paintings. If there is any mention of artists, usually it goes as for as saying something like 'With the movement of impressionism we see artists like monet..." So the article succesfully says, Monet is an Impressionist and thats all that bears fruit with Monet.

I am at odds with art history and I assume it will be a contenual source of frustration seeing as I have to take art history classes to get my degree.