New Thing 1, New Thing 2

So today was a day of learning more about two things that I thought I knew something about. In Islam class, I learned about liberal Islam and in Art History, I learned about Russian Impressionism. Both concepts were new to me which was fun. Plus the sun was shining. Basically, a great day.

So in Islam vs. the West we discussed liberal Islam. (As a side note, my prof canceled class last week so I didn't miss anything by being in Spain which was nice.) Some of you might be thinking "liberal Islam. Isn't that an oxymoron?" Well, no, it's not. There are all different kinds of philosophies in Islam. There are fundamentalists, radicals, moderates, and of course, liberals. The liberal Muslims think that Islam has nothing to do that so many Fundamentalists do. Liberal Muslims also think that Islam is compatible to democracy. In connection with the idea of Liberal Muslims, we talked about the role of women in Islam. There are many issues to discuss like marriage, dress code, domestic violence and the right to work. Generalizing (a very bad thing to do), liberal Muslims have very Western ideas about all of those things where as Fundamentalists follow exactly what the with political or economic systems and should not force its beliefs on people. The best example of this is in Turkey. It is a secular country (the only majority Muslim, secular country in the world) and has been doing OK for the most part. There are many other aspects to Liberal Islam like how they are more open to Western ideas and how they reject the literal readings of the QuranQuran says. After seeing a slide show and taking notes for a while on that stuff, we watched a video. The video was about a guy who went to a bunch of different Islamic countries looking for liberal Islam. He visited Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, and Turkey. It was a really interesting movie. I liked the parts about Turkey simply because I am going to go there. Honestly, I had never even heard of liberal Islam before so it was a really eye-opening experience for me.

After Islam class, I came back and went on the computer and added a ton of pictures to Facebook. It took a while but I eventually got a bunch on. For lunch, I had tortilla chips with salsa (SO GOOD!!!) and an already prepared salad thing. Then I walked over to the Royal Academy of Art for Art History class (picture 1). For our class, we went into an exhibit called "From Russia". It is an exhibit featuring paintings from 4 different Russians museums. The paintings are by French and Russian artists from 1860-1925. That means more Impressionism. Yay! The exhibit almost didn't happen because some people claimed they owned the paintings and said they didn't want them being shown. That caused a ruckus and some talking back and forth of the two governments but eventually they came to a consensus and the paintings were shown. It is a really popular exhibit (sold out just about every day). This is the first time that these paintings have ever have shown in the different country and all together like this. Very special.

We met up outside the exhibit and Linda talked to us about "From Russia" and stuff. Then we got our tickets and were sent on our own way in. The exhibit is really about how the French Impressionists affected the painting styles of the Russians and how the Russians used that style but in their own way. As I said, all the paintings are in 4 different museums throughout Russia but just about, if not all, of the paintings are from two Russian collectors. One was named Morozov and the other was named Shchukin. They both loved Van Gogh and Monet and had extensive collections by them. They did have slightly different tastes though. Shchukin loved Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso. Morozov favored the Nabi artists and Fauvism. Both men had all their paintings in their houses but by 1905, both opened up their houses to painters and other artists to view the paintings and get inspiration.

I did have some paintings that I liked a lot. There were a ton of paintings by the way and it took me much longer than everyone else to get through because I read all the information and looked at each of the ones I liked carefully. I actually went through slowly, writing down the ones I especially liked, and then went back to the beginning and walked through again to make sure there weren't any other that jumped out at me (borrowed this technique from my mom). So the first painting that I especially liked was Cezanne's "Woman in Blue" (picture 2) which I don't really know anything about (no info card next to it) but I really liked how the woman's body language and face looked "blue" just like her dress and stuff. The next painting that I really, really liked was a painting by Derain called "Drying the Sails" (picture 3). It is a fauvist painting meaning that the colors are not realistic, the shapes are a little abstract and the brush strokes are quick and stuff. I just like how the blue and orange clash and make the painting really bright and stand out. When I walked into the room with this painting, it immediately jumped out at me. A painting by a Russian artist that has a very fauvist quality to it that I also really enjoyed was "Date Palm, Egypt" by Saryan (picture 4). I also liked a painting called "Kissing the Earth" by th Russian artist Roerich (picture 5). I don't know much about it other than it is a landscape painting so I almost automatically liked it. The "natural abstraction" of it really caught my eye. There were tons of other paintings that I really liked but the last one I will mention here (I don't want you all to get bored) is "Peasants Dancing" by Natalya Goncharova (picture 6). She painted in pretty abstract ways but always featured something about Russia. She drew landscapes, people, and still-lifes. This painting is of very Russian looking peasants dancing together.

After I got done with the exhibit, I walked over to another art gallery called White Cube (picture 7). Linda recommended it to us and it was right across the street so I figured I might as well check it out. Linda said it was "a hip and happening art gallery" or something. Inside, there is literally two white rooms. One room had probably 25 identical statues of an abstracted naked guy all over the walls, ceiling and floor (picture 8 but without the guy in the middle obviously). Can anybody say extremely weird? I wasn't really in the mood I suppose after seeing all the sweet paintings before. The other big white room had a bunch of metal pieces of varying sizes welded together to form a big metal caterpillar looking thing. It was more complicated than that but, again, I didn't really get it. Oh well, it was still cool.

I started to walk back to my flat but the sun was shining and I noticed in Green Park a bunch of deck chairs. I didn't sit in them but I did take a couple pictures which was cool (picture 9). The parks were really busy today with people walking and biking and roller blading because of the nice weather. I continued walking back to my flat and soaking up the sunshine. The reflection of the sun on the water, which I am always a sucker for (e.g. Crater Lake, Grand Teton, Lake Sag, etc.), in Hyde Park was so cool (picture 10). It was a perfect spring day. Back at the flat, I finished organizing my class schedule, ate dinner and lounged around like usual. I didn't do anymore Spain posts because I spent a lot of today putting up a ton of pictures on Facebook. Sorry, as I have said before, when I find time, I will do it. I guess that's all for now. I hope everyone had at least a little bit of fun today! I know I did.

Farewell!