Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A serious day off

I am currently trying to get back under my fingers Beethoven's Bagatelles Op. 124, the last set of pieces he wrote for piano. I need to demonstrate my artistry for a school downtown I am hoping to get a job with. However, the piano I have here at my disposal is inadequate. It is going to be a challenge to practice artistry when currently the notes aren't even sounding right! And to boot, my dog is now living in Colorado. To cheer myself up, I went to the Art Institute of Chicago today and browsed around watching people as much as looking at the artwork.


The painting below is one by Paul Klee, a Swiss-born painter and musician of the early 20th century. Though I have seen his paintings several times hanging at the art institute, I never really took much notice of them until today. Klee's colorful, and sometimes childlike art is supposed to have political dimensions (which I don't understand) for which he was labeled "degenerate" by the Germans post World War I (go figure).







I don't know the name of the above painting, and couldn't find it online. But his art reminds me of the stories of Brian Andreas.


I was also able to find one of my favorite paintings, done by John Singer Sargent, an American Impressionist and contemporary of Whistler. I love how brilliant the whites are in the portrait, especially as how it usually hangs by such stiff-looking American art.


The Fountain, by John Singer Sargent.



Not having to walk my dog, I'm not sure what to do with myself in the evenings! Maybe I'll go on a bicycle ride. Sigh. Maybe I'll go back to practicing the "piano."






In other news: Somalia, who hasn't had a functioning government in the past sixteen years has scheduled a peace conference - Islamist opposition members refuse to attend because the venue isn't neutral - the president says the talks will occur regardless of violence in the area - and they are postponed. Mary-Kate Olsen needs new shoes. And former Prime Minister Shimon Peres is formally inaugurated as the ninth president of Israel - he is eighty-three years old.

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