(no subject)

Via a flist post, from a response to something on thequestionclub, I found this comment:

The reason it's so famous is evident when you walk around the Louvre a bit. All the other paintings of women from that time period are SERIOUS. The women are ugly and have straight faces - no smiles. Mona Lisa is so different because she's actually smiling.

And I just went *sigh*.

Because the poster is wrong - really wrong. I'm not going to take the "ugly" part, because that's subjective, but none are smiling. For Chrissake - even Wikipedia has images in the same entry that prove it's wrong.

Anyway.

My contemporary art class is fulfilling on a level I wasn't expected. Dear god... discussion - with opinions being important and just as important. I like it, it's a change from the RTIP. Which, wonderful as it was (I'm completely serious here) I realize now I wasn't as happy as I am now. Most of it dealt in absolutes, and what opinion there was, wasn't this type.

Currently, the class is moving more into the theory of contemporary art. Makes a nice change - yesterday was devoted to formalism and some theories involving that. Both classes this week discussed art and what others view as art (see: stuff that gets pulled because the public views it as obscene).

This kind of culminated in being informed that, no matter what, we thought - we're the elite. We're not looking up at the ivory tower, we're in the damned thing.

It was amusing.

I have no idea where I was going with all this...

*grin*