My numerous visits at Parisian museums reminded of an interesting fact that homo sapiens would not die not having music, or art. However, it is in the nature of human beings to express and to contemplate others’ expression through art.
Being in Paris, I had the chance to see such expression throughout history. Just start with the Renaissance, in which artists, philosophers and scientists (European) suddenly discovered the old glory time in Rome and in Greece, through the translation from Arab (golden age) books. They started to study painting, science, philosophy rigorously. Scientific method started to take form. This is definitely one of the most important discovery in our history. In art, Italian painters started to paint the real life with such an artistic, but realistic style. This school of thought led to French Classicism. Definitely David, Ingrid are among the best representative (Musee du Louvre). The rigidity of Classicism, combining with the rebellious spirit of young artists in Paris created Impressionism. Form were still there, but expressed in much more ‘libre’ style. Details were not important anymore, as we can see in Monet’s or Renoir’s work (Musee d’Orsay, Musee de l’Orangerie). Then come the late Impressionism movement, in which Cezanne would be an excellent example, where form became the center point of expression. Innovation in artist mind as well as in artist’s materiel leads painting to a new level of abstraction (Musee d’Orsay). But we can still see a painting of Cezanne and realize what he draw without much of hesitation. The cubism school takes the initatative formed by Cezanne and create a mind-blowing painting, so they thought. Picasso and Bragg’s work in these years can be seen at the Pompidou (Centre Pompidou). And from that, avangarde art became something completely detached from human vision and conventional perception. Overtime, it involved more and more provocative and absurd ideas, not just abstract. Monochromes of Yves Klein, or Pollock’s drip-painting are few of some exceptionally famous of the movement (Centre Pompidou). Contemporary arts evolve into many other schools. A painting of a well-defined form, or even Painting it-self, has become too main-stream…
* The first picture on top was taken in Geneve Museum of Fine Art, I call the picture “Ladies in White”. The second picture right above was taken in the Boston Museam of Fine Art, which has a strong collection of Impressionism, Pissaro, Monet, Renoir, even Bazille. This particular picture is however the Classicism section. The third picture at the bottom was taken at MOMA in New York, les Demoiselles d’Avignon of Picasso. This one is call “S’observer”. None of these pictures is from Parisian Museum.
