Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Feminist Literature. I tried to put the book down at first with disgust at such a genre. It wasn’t exactly the most appealing type of literature for me.

However, due to personal reasons, I still had to go over her copy of Herland anyhow, so I thought, might as well.

I still haven’t really changed my opinionb of feminist literature, but I do think that Herland is a novel that, though not ecxactly the best that I’ve come across so far, has definitely eplored some areaswhic hI think was rather interesting. I like the author’s rather surprisingly new way of looking at a topic. Illustrating it, I should sauy.

Not only was the feminist movement rather different ain her age, the whole fresh new angle of seeing things was aptly portrayed by her use of a character from a female utopia to judge the social ills of our world.

Perhaps what strikes me most regarding this social aspect of her novel is how she shows we have all acclimatised ourselves, as it were, to the imperfections of this society such that we are no longer very much taken aback oabout things like war, overpopulation, cruelty, hatred and distrust, abortion, murder etc. In fact, we seem to have been effectly apatheticized, if there is such a word. We don’t even feel, apart from a rater removed theoretical angle, that this is wrong. We accept it silently as a way of nature, of life.

Perhaps it is this apathetic and nhelpless attitude that is slowly turning into nonchalance. I certainly feel that way. Nations feel that their conquest of other nations, their fight for more land, is something that is natural for a growing population. We see human history in terms of expansion and conquest. Nations are by and large apathetic to social problems that are apparent in other civilisations because they don’t concern one directly; and aid only seems to poiur in when the problem looks like it is going to remotely afffect one in some way or another.

But looking at other parts of our global population since Gilman wrote her novel somewhere near 1905 I am glad to see more cooperation intern-nationally, and more care for the global population at large. But that is not really the crux of the matter. I am slightly disturbed by the way that we come into this world as innocent children who become horrifyingly acclimatised to the bad climate of this world without really knowing it.

Perhaps Gilman’s book, whilst not my iddeal novel, really served one purpose at least: awakened the original concept of innocence in me.

I’m back with Art! (Baroque and Rococco)

Yes! I finally find some time to blog.

If I have said previously that the entries will be more concise, this must be one of those really condensed versions. Perhaps even lacking, because I am not constantly referring to the source material.

Through this half year into a bachelor’s degree course which seems to be rather tiring, I have taken the decision to enforce some ‘preservation of sanity’ POS time for myself to do some other things beyond studies. So I return with a recent update on my newest leisure activity: watching a couple of half-hour videos on the history of western art.

I shan’t attempt to summarise 2 videos on the renaissance and the gothic era, as I can’t really remember. But today’s was on the baroque and the rococco.

Fast slipping my mind but anyway:

The baroque style:
– was initialised after the renaissance. Its primary development (or departure) from the renaissance? Two things. Firstly, a more naturalistic way of depiction. Naturalism, perhaps? (the term was later explained to have developed a rather derogative meaning). Human figures were depicted in more natural, everyday poses (rather than idealised as in the renaissance). Note: Directly after the great achievements of the great masters Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, later artists immediately preceding adopted an imitative style known as mannerism. But Baroque developed after that. Secondly, the subject matter changed from the divine to the everyday.

Rococco:
– key words: lavish, fluffy, ornate and the like. Rococco developed in France and Italy, and probably elsewhere in Europe, but the works on show were primarily from these places. The Rococco style seemed removed from the normal everyday concerns of daily life for the masses, the subject matter concerned mostly (in the beginning, at least under the Sun King of France Louis the 14th) with the leisurely luxurious lives of the privileged elite. Love (romantic, stupid) featured prominently, perhaps aptly described as the ‘only worry, if at all’ of the lives of those depicted in these pastoral, heaven on earth paradises.

– it took a change for a more realistic view in later years. Perhaps influenced from a wave of support for moralism, the tone shifted to a depiction of satire of the elite (as in Hogarth – funny guy I loved his works when I heard of them! This brilliant artist seemed to have a love of ‘visual satire’ – in his work on The Rake’s Progress, he painted a series which followed a young rich man through his life of splendour and subsequent decline, with the pictures very much painting a clear picture of moral should and should-nots.) or with the depiction of everyday life. Someone did a work, The Blue Boy, which was spectacular for its defying conventions – blue, a receding cover, was never used by the masters as a foreground colour, preferring brighter colours like red for that purpose. But The Blue Boy featured a boy dressed in brilliant blue. And I must say, the work of handling the shading was most perfect. The rendered velvet was most real.)

– The change in depicting more everyday life subjects seem to have come with a separate movement called neo classicism. The underriding sentiment was a desire to revive classic art (Greek, Roman esp) and it seemed, the republican spirit with it. Perhaps a counter to the luxurious make-believe world of the idle echelons of society, it soon became the art of the French Revolution, depicting themes of revolt, liberty, nationalistic fervour.