Winter Full Moon of the Cold Month
A cold stretch coming up. The night of Kate’s retirement party predicted to be -22 with a high of 3 during the day. I have disposable cameras to buy, chipboard for small signs and a couple of things to print out. That last may be a problem. My HP laserjet printer, one I’ve had since the late 90’s, you know, back in the last century, seems unwilling to accept a new toner cartridge. I’ve changed these out many times over the last 10-12 years, so this is a puzzle. My other printer, a Canon color printer, is also down right now. I’m going to take a stab at solving those while I’m out buying cameras and chipboard.
I’ve got my tour for tomorrow morning patched together. We’ll start with Monet, the impressionist Haystack, to ground our further adventures in expressionism. Where the plein air impressionists wanted to show just what their senses saw, color as created by light bouncing off of objects and received by painterly retinas, the expressionists gave up the senses to the camera and tried to depict that cavern measureless to man, the human mind and human feeling. Using the formal aspects of painting in new and unusual ways, color, bright color, chosen for its expressive nature rather than its sensory veracity, flowing lines not always stopping at the borders of one object, compositions set flat against the canvas, shoved up toward the front with all the Renaissance experiments in perspective abandoned, the expressionists wanted to evoke feeling and the swirling inner life of the individual.
Some of my favorite pieces in the museum are in our expressionist collection: Beckmann’s Blind Man’s Buff, Kandinsky’s Study for Improvisation V and the Egon Schiele painting to the right.
Well, back to the tour work.