Modern Art, scripture reading

Well, here I am about to embark on another research paper.  Oh what fun!  Last time it was my paper about technology.

This time, it’s for a modern European art history class.  Modern as in Modernism, ca 1900-1945.  I’m going to write about Mucha and how he used the female body as a decorative motif, put it on a pedestal, and used it to represent objects like gems and seasons.  Woohoo!  Funny that even though I’m going to say his art is misogynistic, he’s one of my absolute favorite artists just because his art is so pretty!  It is SO pretty!  In fact, my little circular picture to the right, where my name is, that is a Mucha painting.

I am so happy that within the past year I have finally learned what Modernism and Postmodernism are.  I like Postmodernism more, in theory, but I like the art in Modernism better just because it’s pretty (not all of it, but more than in Postmodern).  Modernism freaks me out.  So does Postmodernism, but at least it’s trying to correct/criticize Modernism, which had helped bring about thinks like Nazism and Fascism.

I do like some Modernist ideas.  My favorite thing that the Modernists said that I’ve learned so far is that artists should not try to copy art from the past or say that it is the “best way” or “only way” to make good art.  To do so is to make art soulless and sappy.

“Every work of art is the child of its time, often it is the mother of our emotions.

“Thus, every period of culture produces its own art, which can never be repeated.  Any attempt to give new life to artistic principles of the past can at b est only result in a work of art that resembles a stillborn child.  For example, it is impossible for our inner lives, our feelings, to be like those of the ancient Greeks.  Efforts, therefore, to apply Greek principles, e.g., to sculpture, can only produce forms similar to those employed by the Greeks, a work that remains soulless for all time.” -Wassily Kandinsky, co-founder of German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, taken from Concerning the Spiritual in Art

The only problem with this idea is that it starts to say that art is constantly evolving and getting better and better.  Soon they believe that all of history and mankind is on this same upward slope.  Then ideas of Utopia come up and people start killing off “imperfect” people in their quest for a perfect world.

In other news, I have decided to read the Bible in a year, maybe once a year for the rest of my life.  I’ve never read the entire Bible.  I remember in seminary we weren’t asked to -only selections, and anyway I rebelled and read the parts we weren’t asked to read -a.k.a Song of Solomon.  HA! See my brother-in-law’s post about why it is ok to read Song of Solomon, though it is not inspired scripture, as our church believes.  However, the only thing I remember is “The voice of the turtle is heard in our land” (Song 2:12).  It means turtle-dove, but boy that image is funny.

So I found a neat plan online and I’ve been doing it for four days so far.  Today I read about Noah, after the floods were gone and God made a covenant with him and his family.  And then when he got Very Drunk.  I also read a part from the New Testament, and a Psalm.  In this plan, you read three different parts each day.  It takes 20-30 minutes.  I’m totally stoked to read the whole Bible!  There’s so many fantastically interesting things that happen in it. And can I just say that I am in love with King David?  Well, I am. Maybe he’s my favorite character in the Bible.

Of course, not to neglect, I’m also reading the Book of Mormon with Samuel.