Less is More

How bizarre! From one extreme to another - after the madness of last week, this week it's only tension as people worry about their choices and then worry will they get their first - Friday will tell all - I know where I want to be .

This person has the right idea regarding public art:

Could be a student with financial problems moving between LSAD and Ormston House, of course.

Talking of moving, we were down in Georges Quay for CCS again (more in a minute) but with every day I walk around Limerick there are more strange images to suck up:

 

What is this?

 

Indeed, what is this?

 

 

Urban fabric.

 

CCS today was about Japonism and Orientalism, the former having a very direct influence at the time of Impressionism and Post -I; the later was more of a cultural and even philosophical effect which spread widely through Western(?) thinking and indeed is still deeply ingrained in our attitudes.

 

I knew a bit about the effects of Japan in Europe, and particularly of Japanese woodblock prints as they have always fascinated me:

Hiroshige

 

Hokusai

 

- and I knew that many artists - notably Van Gogh and Toulouse -Lautrec - had produced work related to these. But I had never before seen the prints made by Mary Casssatt:

 

 

 

 

 

These are really beautiful

 

 

The other part of our lecture concerned Orientalism, a term coined by Edward Said, and the cultural attitude it defines elaborated by him. This led into our second lecture which was really a video interview with Dr Said where he goes into his ideas in some detail. This should be mandatory viewing for all western children at least once yearly simply so that they might mature with a more balanced view of the whole world.

 

 

Public Print