#lecture 5

https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/wou-ki-zao#past-lots

Zao Wou-ki 趙無極 (1920-2013)

Not too deep into expressionism, but one artist I would like to talk about is Zao Wou-ki, a Chinese oil painter who moved to France. He combined Western abstract painting methods with the ethereal imagery of Chinese freehand brushwork (寫意畫), the oil painting is transformed into a freehand brushwork effect, with thin oil splashes and dry brushwork.

In Chinese 寫意 mean writing ideas / concepts, this is well connected with expressionism themes which “​​ refers to art in which the image of reality is distorted in order to make it expressive of the artist’s inner feelings or ideas.” (TATE)

Fantastic date.

Short journal; saving up my text for when we talk about the stuff on Monday. Just wanted to note that we answered my cult question in class.

Okay actually one more thing.

What the hell, Hesiod? Like I get it, we’re short on texts that are well preserved and in the original language it must be a lot more beautiful.

But what was his point? “Hey Perses, bro, you screwed me over taking our dad’s inheritance that was supposed to go to me, but I’m still going to give you life advice. What is that advice you might ask?”

Well, that advice is TIMELESS. It’s called “Women are whores who exist to take everything you own.”

Oh wait, except for the ONE WOMAN you eventually marry when you are thirty who is a reward for all your hard work (instead of... like... their own person) who will be pure and soft.

But the rest of them? Golddiggers. Event though the gold is buried with the Mycenaeans or with the Phoenicians in Spain.

Honestly this ticks me off so much. I’m not even gonna TOUCH Sparta yet. But Hesiod’s stuff is the same stuff we’ve heard about. I don’t even get the point of his poems. I think I’m missing some major cultural significance.

Now I know, I know, judge them by the time. In this time, there was no pesky “women’s rights.”

But we’re connecting to today and this hasn’t gone away. The “Madonna or whore” division of women. What about the women who just want to live their own lives?

Honestly, just to touch on the Sparta thing, the one good thing going was the rare sex. At least then there’d be a lower shot of her ovulating and less attempting so hopefully the women weren’t made prisoners of pregnancies so often.

And I hate that this is my role. Seeing women mistreated in time and wondering what I would have been seen at, scorned for, beaten for. Why can’t I enjoy the cool philosophy without being told menstruation is dirty? You know sometimes I sit in class and imagine being brought back in time (ignoring language barrier) and having to explain our views of things. Of science, of leaving some architectural sites preserved.