Ok so have really started to do the MoMA appreciation of Modern Art course with mum now.

We have both completed week 1 (Post-impressionism, highlighted by Van Gogh), but yet to talk it over with each other.

And have moved on to week 2 which concentrates on ‘Symbolism’.

It was what I decided to give as a birthday present to Mum this year for her *Ahem  ….will not mention year birthday.  The idea behind giving this online appreciation course as a gift, was that it can bring the 2 of us closer together even though I’m in China and she’s back in Australia, we would each go through the material in our own time, and then come together online to discuss and go through what we thought of and our opinions so far of the material.

I went to the Netherlands for a business trip last December (2015) until mid Jan 2016, and in my final weekend I finally had time to check out 3 of the Museums – Mauritshuis museum, Rijksmuseum & the Stedelik museum.  The modern art / contemporary art museum (Stedelik) I actually walked out of because I was too annoyed at to be honest. But the simple modern art displayed in the Rijksmuseum when I read the description caught my attention.

I was in fact walking around going through by myself with the audio tour looking at all these religious like paintings by Rembrandt or something… and I just has so little interest, and then I got to the 3rd floor…which is kind of hidden in that museum because the elevators are separated from the normal elevators. And there were many brilliant pieces.

It was what I later found out to be Mondrian’s through friends, that really took my eye.

Imagine in a society that everyone is painting religious like paintings… and the whole mold is formatted around doing this, and you’ve got one painter that thinks fuck this, and those paintings and goes off in a different direction. He’s had all the classical training, he knows what he’s supposed to do yet, he says fuck it anyway.

And he paints something that purposefully goes against the grain even to something as simple as symmetry.

mondrian

It’s not even primary colours, well it is but they’re in differing amounts, it can’t count as a pattern or rather you don’t get to see enough to know if it is a pattern or not. Grey is the priority colour yet at the same time its not because even though the yellow doesn’t have as much space it makes such a resounding impact because its not framed, yet you feel like it should be.  One of the lines is obviously finished by the artist yet your mind tell you its not because it wants it to be a framing line…yet it doesn’t perfectly frame the separation of the 2 grey boxes.

This painting made a huge impact on me.

And it was mum that told me to go and see this museum whilst I was in the Netherlands and we talked about it later.

I realised that I like this kind of ‘fuck you’ attitude, this whole going against the grain, as it takes a good deal of courage to stand up against the majority. Because even though there is a majority it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are right, nor does it necessarily mean that they should define the direction you as an individual should go in.

I realized that I like this kind of art as it was a representation for the kind of ‘against the grain struggle’ , yet at the same time I am ignorant in knowing about it.

I don’t like to be ignorant in anything. I prefer to know and understand how the world works in all aspects.

Mum has told me that she doesn’t know much about this kind of art and would want to know more as well.

Thus I think the course is was the perfect gift.  We can both decrease our ignorance and expand our understanding together.

I’d better get on to the rest of the course. Its currently week 4 out of the 12 weeks we’ve been given to do the 10 unit course, and both of us have only done 1 unit.

Mum has just come home after her knee surgery and she’s in recover for 2 – 6 weeks, whilst I’ve got work and stuff to attend to.  So I’d better spend my time wisely.

Back to it