About Pompeii

I've always thought of Pompeii as a very advanced city inside the Roman Empire. Well..honestly I do not know about any other Italy cities during the Roman Empire. I would definitely like to learn more about their civilization.
What amazes me is that even after the enormous eruption of Mount Versuvius, so many remainings of the city is still here.
I read about some of it in both the Oxford Book and the Art History book...but sadly there wasn't enough information for me to know more about how they lived...

Personally I think the amphitheatre of Pompeii is the most impressive.




This is obviously a demostration showing the advanced system and magnificence of the Ancient Roman Empire. The structure is amazingly symmetrical and is obviously very stable since it survived the eruption. The Romans back then must be very much proud of their civilization. From this I can also see the innovation and creativity within the architects back then...I would've never thought of putting two theatres together to make a colosseum.
Furthermore, I can sense how much the Romans liked entertainment. That must be where the gladiators fought lions. Cruel...but exhilrating somehow. The watchers must had some enjoyment.

I have seen this picture in my Oxford book when it mentioned Pompeii:



The book said the couples was the "baker and his wife" but when I searched it up the data said their identity is disputable.....?

Again, very impressive style with some interest in casting some shadows to create three dimensional space, especially considering that this was a wall painting.
Although I am not very touched on the emotional side of this painting. I wish they could've had some more expression to make connection with the viewer..but maybe it is just my opinion because I like to seek sympathy with the piece of art. However, it is a good job for a contemporary piece in the Ancient Roman Time. The Greeks would've done it better....I think.....

Anyway, I think Pompeii is a very interesting subject for me to discuss about, despite my lack of knowledge about it. I may watch a movie about it someday, especially about the last day of it. (Sorry I like looking at the despair of the people and the atmosphere before the volcano is about to erupt...it is ART)

PS. Versuvius is a great name....I wonder why would people use this name on a volcano...

About Dutch Art

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a good start of the year.
My start is pretty awesome overall :) Not exactly very special but I was happy and satisfied. I hope this will be a good year for me.
So this is the first update in 2011! Yay :D

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I was reading the Art History book and I saw a section on Dutch art.
At first I frowned, questioning:"What the heck is Dutch art? It doesn't sound very special."
Of course that was before I read the book and saw the art XD
I really like the style of Dutch Art during their Golden Age. I love its details and advanced techniques in portraiture as well as still life and flower painting.
I can understand the Dutch's love for genre painting, I guess, because Amsterdam and other Dutch areas give me the "down-to-earth" kind of feeling. I wonder why it never gave me an urban-like impression..I haven't even been to Amsterdam before and it's strange how the image just formed in my head :/

The first portrait that made an impression on me is the "Buffoon Playing a Lute" by Frans Hals. When i think of "portraits", I think of pictures with a person drawn in naturalistic style with that person's most distinct characteristics of the appearance. Just appearance. With no expression what-so-ever. And usually in my mind, a portrait contains only one's body above one's shoulder as well.

But look at this:



My first reaction seeing it is this: o_0

And then it completely altered my mind about portraits. This portrait shows movement and emotion that depicts the characteristic of the person-both appearance-wise and personality-wise. The convincingly joyful smile is also a very rare case during that period of time. This also made an impression on me because it gives me an warm feeling seeing the person enjoying life so much.

I also like the still lifes of Dutch art, especially their vanitas paintings. I like their idea of wanting to show the fleeting life because this way it emphasizes the "moment" more. (Why is this starting to sound more and more like Impressionism..? Hmmm)



An example.

Flower paintings of Rachel Ruysch impressed me as well. I like her detail of each petal as well as the colours.



Pweety~~

But unfortunately to be frank, the Genre paintings of Dutch Art is not as impressive in my mind. It's like any other genre paintings to me. I can't see anything special except maybe their light source.

Well that's about it ~

The Alexander Sarcophagus

I've been wondering about the legends of Alexander the Great for quite some time now. I was wondering about his existance. He was definitely a real person, but the fact that a perfect so perfect actually existed in this world just seemed surreal to me.
See, he was handsome.
He was intelligent.
He was a great leader, encouraging the kings from other countries he conquered to help govern the states and respected their own culture.
He had great military power, able to conquer Persia and all those other countries.
And finally, he died being perfect.
I would most likely say "How bogus is that?!?!?" if I just heard this legend right now.
But the point is, that he existed in this world and left the world many artistic legacies, with the most significant one being the Alexander Sarcophagus.




Just look at the intricate high relief on the sides, showing the most amazing scenes of battle at that time. It also has a blend of different cultures of the regions that he conquered, which makes it all the more fascinating and makes him all the more admirable. I saw the Oxford book talking about the sarcophagus and I wished it had more information on the sarcaphagus.

The sarcophagus must be crafted from different crafters from the regions that he conquered. And the notion that all of the crafters working under one piece of magnificent art piece makes me want to bow at Alexander the Great's charisma for assuming his people's loyalty towards him, even the ones that he conquered over. That was just amazing for me to see since in History class all I learned was about dictators......It is highly unlikely for a person to have so much power and capability without abusing it. (I know I would.)

The sarcophagus further stunned me with the contrast on the front and the back. One side is all chaotic and shows the wildness and the ugliness of the battle, whereas the back shows all of the people fighting as a team with impressive cooperation. I am not much informed on the sarcophagus, so forgive me if I am wrong, but i think that the sarcophagus is trying to emphasize the power of Alexander of organizing his army. With Alexander shown in the piece with a lion helmet, it not only protrays the his power, but also his personality and his ambition.

I wonder if I meet him would I get entranced by his charm too....:/

About the Japanese

I've been admiring Japan for a long time, even before I was too young and ignorant to be culturally appreciative. I was merely fascinated by the manga, the games, and the anime....which I still am. But before I've always dreamed of the high-tech-ness of Tokyo and the people and the shingansen and just the amazing technology.

So then I went to Japan two times. One time to Tokyo and I was stunned by the clean, civilized and incredibly crowded streets where all I could see was people's heads. The technology was scarily advanced, and I kept staring people's cellphones like a idiot.

Hm, you'd think Mocha would be less bitter.

The second time I went to Japan is to Nagoya in an exchange program. I thought of it as another way to buy manga and see high-tech stuff.

BIG MISTAKE.

I did see high technology, but then I realized something else.

Since Nagoya and Kyoto are old...I got to see the amazing architecture built by the ancient Japanese and it completely altered my point of view of Japan to a whole new perspective.

And then of course that was where the weepy-ness kicked into me.

The matter-of-fact idea of Japan having had a gloriously glittering culture hit me late, but eventually I got to learn more about their civilization in the Oxford book and in my civilization textbook. The civilization textbook talked more about the culture and what happened, and the Oxford book elaborated more on the aesthetic perspective. I wouldn't be able to link the things together if i didn't have my civilization book.....thank you civilization.

So the main topic.

It's amazing how beautiful Japan looks, huh?

Many people found the Heian period unnatural and kind of weird. But it is true that it made a huge contribution to the current Japanese culture. The Tale of Genji wouldn' be here if it wasn't for this period. The Tale of Genji made the historians know more about the way of living as well as the perspective on art.

For example:

This picture explicitly shows what the Heian people expect in a home. No separation on the inside and outside, the extremely well-organized garden with water and plants, and layers and the colors of women's clothing.

I also admired the aesthetics of the shogunate periods. It's very amazing how their views changed so dramatically in such a short period. I wonder if it was the bafuku's influence?



This is the Jochiji temple which was one of the Zen Buddhism schools.
Cool beauty huh?
In this kind of enviroment, no wonder the samurais are appreciative and willing to work.
Practising in that kind of scenery is going to get the energy out no matter what.

About the Greek

WOW.....I'm updating my blog at the very constant rate now...haha :D

Every single Sunday..I didn't realize that until today XDD

This is great, I really hope I can keep up because I tend to get extremely lazy after a while.

Hmm I wanna do a post about classical music sometime...I hope I can get to do that next week.

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GREEK PEOPLE WERE AWESOME.

That's what I've been thinking for a long time.

When I was little, I used to love reading all the stories and the Greek gods and things like that. Doesn't horoscopes come from the Greek myths too?

Seriously, Greek myth is the most interesting and most intricate and most fascinating myths at the time. I love how the Greeks made the gods resemble humans. I think it can tie the people very closely to their own religion because they can relate to the stories so well.

And it's amazing that the Greeks still have so many influence on the modern society, next to the ancient Romans.

See, many handsome people are usually described as "Greek God" and things like that.

And also the beauty of nudity. (But since I am still a teenager....yeah nudity kind of makes me feel awkward..)

And finally, the horoscopes, like I have said before.

Okay, now for the arts.

I was able to see many great masterpieces in the book I bought :)

I very much admire the way their sculptures were made. Instead of the linear version of just one side, it is basically natural in very angle. And their clothes pattern....just wow. It doesn't have any repetition or anything, it just looks so natural and so close to our modern art. It's like the clothes just smoothly flows and you can just touch the soft fabric in your hand.

My favourite, is of course. "The Charioteer".

Apparently it was placed in Delphi, which was believe to be the center and the most sacred place on Earth. It's significance is very obvious. But it is such a shame that we do not get the see the original version of Apollo standing on the chariot with the four horses....It must look stunning. It also used to have silver embellishment on Apollo's body to make him look more gracious but it was lost also...

It's elegance can also tell one the importance of the Phthian Games. I love the appreciation the Greek people had to competition. I wonder if the Roman's Lion Fighting stuff was adopted from the Greeks....

About Minoan Crete

I was reading about the third millennium BC in the book I bought :D

So it is basically about the Egypitian art and the Mesopotamian art, which is completely normal since they were the two largest and earliest civilization in the world.

But then I came upon the Crete and their island culture. I have barely heard of this little culture and it somehow fascinated me thinking that there are milions of other little cultures in this world. I wish we can know more though. We know too little as humans.

Okay, back to topic.

I like how the the art in Minoan Crete emphasizes the simplicity as well as joy in their art, which is very rare, considering all the expressionless luxurious Egyptian paintings. I especially enjoy their appreciation towards nature around them, rather than worshipping the gods and finding their own identity.

My favourite is "The Springtime Fresco". The delicate outlines of the picture and the various colours explicitly expresses the worship the Minoan had towards nature. It is one of the earliest landscape drawings anywhere in the world. That just indicates how special the Minoan culture is.

This is my second favourite.

This vase has such a unique style that it amazes me. The people are not carved in profile, there are not any luxuries in the background, and it is not about anybody royal. My eyes were focused on their chanting and their laughter. I could almost hear their joy in harvesting. I could imagine their hyper and songs they sang as they got home carrying all their crops.

I am very surprised at this style, because most Egyptian doesn't have smiles on their faces and they focus on the afterlife and the activities. The Minoans definitely focus on their emotions more, which they should.

It's great.

About the Stonehenge in London

So I was reading this book my mom bought me about Art History.
It's called A World History of Art.(How very original..)Apparently it was recommended
It's very interesting, although deadly heavy.

I came upon the pages where it was talking about the Neolithic artifacts.
It was about the Stonehenge. I was fascinated by the magnificence of it. The atmosphere is so enigmatic, making you wonder over and over again what the purpose this is and how in the world did underdeveloped minds can possibily build something like that.




It is said in the book that it was aligned according on the locations of the horizons, and the movement of the sun and moon. Apparently the stones are placed on the exact spot of the sunrise and moonrise and where the sun and the moon are during a time interval. The intricate lining of the stones are amazing. The bluestones placed inside of the ring was definitely for a spiritual purpose but it is a wonder how the Neolithic people brought these stones between 6 and 8 feet to their exact planned location. I was also wondering how would they place such big stones vertically without any developed tool back then?





Personally, I just think this is an architecture that was built both intellectually and religiously. The authors of the book said that it was used to predict a 300-year cycled elipses. I think it would be very difficult because humans do not live for 300years to see a cycle. And the people back then would not know that there is an elipse every 300 years without proper way to transfer knowledge. I believe that there is a way of recording down the knowledge of the elipses somewhere within the artifacts. Maybe behind their aesthetic disguise, there is a sort of message about these things.
And second, about the purpose of creating this thing.
I believe that the older the people were from the times, the closer they are related to nature and the existence of gods. Although I am agnostic-meaning that I believe the existence of god is questionable-,I cannot help but to wonder about the origins of the "worshipping the gods" concept. Maybe somewhere during the evolution process of eventually becoming Homo Sapien Sapien, people are becoming closer to gods. Maybe the knowledge and the beginning of arts is a quality given by the gods, and that is where all this begun. But as times goes by , people are beginning to be distracted from the beauty that they forgot the true purpose.

But then again that is just my assumption. :)
Again just think about what they were thinking about when they were building this makes me feel so many things.