01-02-2012, 10:50 AM
My brother took me to his studio, and showed me an Olde Worlde calendar-- pictures of quaint cottages, or wooden houses, with women sweeping about with long skirts. One of his sons had given it to him last year, and several months later, he had shown it to his older son (both in their 20s). He expected him to laugh at it, but he did not. He said he thought it was good, and admired the pics.
He found this difficult to understand. Then it dawned on him. No-one had ever told them otherwise, whereas he and I, when young, lived in a house with white everywhere, save black book-shelves. Mum liked Matisse, and similar- but I would still have liked the pretty pictures until---Sis goes to Art School, and returns home talking about "the Fifth" and how she loves it; Bach and Brahms; things being so "chocolate-boxy"; kitsch, and so we began to crawl out of our primordial cultural slime. Along the way, I was exposed to Eliot and Pound, and it was made plain these were the goods. At least it enabled me to mumble about 'Burnt Norton' and the 'Quartets'
Although his pictures are all around the house (and this avatar is his), his sons had not been exposed to this idea of what was cool, art-wise, and what was not.
Is it as simple as that? I think things are good or bad, because I have been told so?
Sorry for long intro. What has been your journey? Oh, and it was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that so baffled us!
He found this difficult to understand. Then it dawned on him. No-one had ever told them otherwise, whereas he and I, when young, lived in a house with white everywhere, save black book-shelves. Mum liked Matisse, and similar- but I would still have liked the pretty pictures until---Sis goes to Art School, and returns home talking about "the Fifth" and how she loves it; Bach and Brahms; things being so "chocolate-boxy"; kitsch, and so we began to crawl out of our primordial cultural slime. Along the way, I was exposed to Eliot and Pound, and it was made plain these were the goods. At least it enabled me to mumble about 'Burnt Norton' and the 'Quartets'
Although his pictures are all around the house (and this avatar is his), his sons had not been exposed to this idea of what was cool, art-wise, and what was not.
Is it as simple as that? I think things are good or bad, because I have been told so?
Sorry for long intro. What has been your journey? Oh, and it was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that so baffled us!