(no subject)
I'm back in Southampton and starting to get back down to work, but I think I'll write this first. It's been such a lovely few weeks. When I started my break I made a list of things to do, and have largely done none of them, but as Jerome K Jerome says:
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
So I'm not too annoyed at myself for not getting much of it done. Things I did instead:
Apparently, in some people's opinion, going home and reading lots doesn't constitute a holiday - I say "B'ah!" to them
The wildlife photography exhibition is something I've gone to for most of the last few years. It's something I go to because my friends are really interested in animals, and because I've been often so it's good to make comparisons. Animals can be interesting, and I appreciate the unsentimentality of it. But in previous years I've been most interested when the photos were more abstract or emulated other kinds of art and unfortunately this has been one of the most literal years yet.
In From Russia I didn't really pay enough attention to what was Russian and what was French but influenced the Russian, but I did enjoy the later rooms throughly. I'd sort of forgotten how much pleasure I get from seeing real paintings. I almost laughed when I saw Promenade by Marc Chagall, and a lady there said she was glad it made someone else as happy as her. I also discovered Cubo-futurism there, I don't understand how the pictures combine different viewpoints in space or time as the name would suggest, but the pictures do look really fantastic.
Again I wasn't totally on the ball when I went to see Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia. With it's attacks on meaning and aesthetics I ought not to have liked it, and often I felt as if I wasn't getting the jokes, or that they jokes were directed at people like me, but some how the art won me over. The rayographs were beautiful, and the spinny wheel things were really ace.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
So I'm not too annoyed at myself for not getting much of it done. Things I did instead:
- Caught up with lots of people in London.
- Saw the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.
- Saw From Russia at the Royal Academy.
- Saw Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia at the Tate.
- Read lots and lots.
Apparently, in some people's opinion, going home and reading lots doesn't constitute a holiday - I say "B'ah!" to them
The wildlife photography exhibition is something I've gone to for most of the last few years. It's something I go to because my friends are really interested in animals, and because I've been often so it's good to make comparisons. Animals can be interesting, and I appreciate the unsentimentality of it. But in previous years I've been most interested when the photos were more abstract or emulated other kinds of art and unfortunately this has been one of the most literal years yet.
In From Russia I didn't really pay enough attention to what was Russian and what was French but influenced the Russian, but I did enjoy the later rooms throughly. I'd sort of forgotten how much pleasure I get from seeing real paintings. I almost laughed when I saw Promenade by Marc Chagall, and a lady there said she was glad it made someone else as happy as her. I also discovered Cubo-futurism there, I don't understand how the pictures combine different viewpoints in space or time as the name would suggest, but the pictures do look really fantastic.
Again I wasn't totally on the ball when I went to see Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia. With it's attacks on meaning and aesthetics I ought not to have liked it, and often I felt as if I wasn't getting the jokes, or that they jokes were directed at people like me, but some how the art won me over. The rayographs were beautiful, and the spinny wheel things were really ace.