Dreams and Reality

Visiting museums is an indulgence, visiting Orsay is a luxury. So when they flew some of the masterpieces from Paris to National Museum of Singapore, everybody has got to go!

Getting into an art school has dramatically changed my perception and perhaps, preference, towards visual art. In the pre-Lasalle life, I was all about surrealism, that was what art to me. Good visual art, paintings in particular, ought to draw more than just mere awe of for its beauty, but also intriques thoughts about the meaning behind the artwork. Like when you see Dali's works, a glance isn't enough, you gotta stop and take some time, to (try to) digest. I thought other kinds of paintings without (extreme) deviation, if you know what I mean, are 'just' pretty.

After a semester in Lasalle, boom, I was sold, thanks to the most extensive - AND FUN - drawing assignments I have 'experienced' my entire life. Ratios / perspectives /style / strokes / colours / highlights / tiny details / textures / shadows / perseverance, forming a masterpiece - that perfectly imitates and even aesthetically enhances the actual object, now we know how hard it is to execute. Extra credit to one of my favorite lecturers, Mr. H, and one realistic art maestro called Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres.

And that day, I got to see one of his paintings with my very eyes.

Venus at Paphos

Well, it isn't my favorite among his magnum opuses, and ironically - what I loooove about Ingres' paintings is the way he painted the textures and reflections of radiant fabrics, but look here it's all skins bwahaha. But. It's still a privilege, sir.

Isn't it delightful to be given the opportunity to contemplate and revel in the things once could only be seen from the screen? In Dreams and Reality, we can seize that, the experience of standing in front of a painting, knowing that each strokes are formed by the hand of great artists like Monet, Degas, Mondrian, and more.

The exhibition is divided into: Allegory and History (The Bible, myths, lits, wars, etc), Man and Contemporary Life (images of social activities - family, leisure, work), Man and Nature (the human figure, landscapes), and Solitude.

Mondrian's Going Fishing

Degas' Dancers Climbing the Stairs

Toulouse-Lautrec's The Clown Cha-U-Kao

Monet before he found his 'thing' #sotoy #lupajudulnya

Cezanne's The Cardplayers

Monet's Woman with a Parasol Looking to the Right

Monet's Branch of the Seine near Giverny

Every stroke defines distinct sensibility

and series of swift, precise decisions.

Gauguin's Les Alyscamps, Arles

AND, THE MAGNET:

Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone

But my favourite among them all is surprisingly Summer Night by Winslow Homer. It's the aura, it's the mystery. The painting actually gave me the inexplainable chill of being by the sea at night, despite the appearance of few figures of human, somehow, lonely.

Homer's Summer Night

Well, in the midst of admiration for how men put the created things to the canvas, the utmost appreciation goes to the greatest artist of all time, the Creator Himself, who painted the skies, who sculpted the earth, and fashioned human beings - with all the complexity and perplexing thoughts within.