Cultural Convention

2nd quarter museum visit

1. I really liked the exhibition because I thought it was different from the ones I’ve been to before. The variety and quality of work amazed me even though those were not famous artists. That made me think that some of the world famous artists are not famous because  of the quality of their work, but because of all the promotion they got. That made me a little sad because I knew that all those artists deserved the same recognition as Picasso and Van Gogh get. 
2. There was work from all over the world there and I could see how different it was depending on where the artists were from. There was some modern art; unique pieces created with smoke; Chanel perfume created by French artists; day in life in some of the poorer countries. 
3. Pricing of most pieces surprised me because there was $10000 and $1000 artwork hanging side by side. Although I understand that the amount of work and time put into it as well as money spent on art supplies determined the price of art pieces, I thought that some of the $1000 deserved to be sold for more than that and vise versa. That made me wonder how artists put price tags on their work, what the main factor is in that decision, and if they compare those prices to other artists’ prices later. 
   

AP Art Museum Visit

What I liked about the museum was how different the paintings were. Some of them portrayed old Balinese life with developed agriculture and almost no tourism. The other ones were all about their modern way of life. Those were mostly paintings of Indonesians with phones and computers, involved in such activities as surfing and shopping. The clothes were very different too: the contrast between the traditional modest clothes and modern Europeanized ones is obvious. Three things I learned were the way Indonesians saw their lives before and after the industrialization, which one they respected more, and how they went about showing that. 

I picked John Muir's "My first summer in the Sierra" because I have heard of him before but I was not sure what he wrote about. I read the first and the fourth chapter of the book and I liked the language Muir used because it was easy to read and did not make me want to skip through the lines. The way Muir described certain things amazed me because I felt like his description reflected the subject he was talking about in a very special, unusual way. For example, the sentence "...by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven" makes me, and i think, other readers, picture plants that are actually being roasted. I believe that the language he uses is absolutely incredible because it is very different from other books about nature. Even though Muir's ideas were not new to me because the modern society brings them up more and more often, they are new in that context. Surrounded by description of John Muir's trip to the mountains, such idea as "it seems extravagant to spend hours so precious in sleep... instead of gazing forever, like the stars" reminds of my own experiences of trying to get work done, get enough sleep and live a normal life, and attempting to enjoy simplicity at the same time. It makes me realize that a normal life is not very "normal" if it lacks such things as being able to enjoy nature. I believe that the feeling of not having enough time for everything appeals to many people and therefore unites us. Thus, Muir does a very good job making us reflect on our own feelings and problems as we are reading "My first summer in the Sierra". 

The idea of creating people and controlling them in order to make someone else happy scares and amuses me at the same time. I loved how the book kept switching to different people's points of view and how Sophie was asked different questions. It made me reflect on those questions too and try to answer them.
I enjoyed "Sophie's World" because I have never read a book like that before. Sometimes I thought that it was dry but other times I discovered things that were very interesting and new to me.
I would like to know more about philosophers that were mentioned in the book, such as Hobbes and Luther because I find their views amazing and very different from what we can find in the modern world.