Thankfully, I was able to get
more sleep last night. It cooled down to the mid-50s here in Chicago, and the
AC repair guy came, so Baby was a much happier sleeper and made it for a five
and a half hour stretch. She’s starting to pretty consistently sleep somewhere
between five and six hours at night, which is absolutely glorious after a few
weeks of only an hour at a time. I always give people the side-eye when they
tell me the newborn phase is the best. I mean, sure they are so adorably tiny
and sweet, but they NEVER sleep a good stretch. At least not at night. At least
mine didn’t. Maybe you had a unicorn baby.
By the way, the problem with the
AC was that the guy who replaced our furnace in January (after the -30 Polar
Vortex shenanigans caused the old furnace to give up the ghost) never
reconnected some vital wires to the AC unit. The repair guy yesterday rolled
his eyes and said the furnace repairman probably did this on purpose so he’d automatically
have an easy service call in the queue when the weather warmed up. I didn’t
bother telling Mr. AC that Mr. Furnace was from the same repair company as him.
But I digress. With a fresh brain
this morning, and a fresh cup of green tea (hey, I’m out of coffee creamer and
didn’t feel like black coffee), I sat down to figure out what came after the
impressionists. Google informed me it was… drum roll please… the
Post-Impressionists! I returned to the Metropolitan Museum’s website to learn
more (check out their information on Post-Impressionism here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/poim/hd_poim.htm).
I’m really liking the Metropolitan’s educational content. They have easily digestible,
well-organized chunks of information that I can read over coffee (or tea!) in
the morning without feeling overwhelmed. There are other schools of painting
that also followed the Impressionists, but Post-Impressionism is what I landed
on this morning.
I learned that the
Post-Impressionists were responding to the Impressionists by expressing
emotions rather than just optical impressions. Their art had themes of deeper
symbolism and abstract tendencies. Two names I recognized from the list of Post-Impressionists
were Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh. Although I’ve never been much of an art
buff, I always thought I liked Van Gogh’s work. I actually had the chance to
visit the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam a few years ago, but the day I went it
was unbearably crowded and very difficult to really enjoy the artwork. Reading through
the Metropolitan’s page on Van Gogh, however (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gogh/hd_gogh.htm),
I realized that there are a few of his landscapes that I like, such as Wheat
Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night, (pictured below), but other than
that I don’t really like his style. For example, I really do not like Olive Trees or A Corridor in the Asylum (also pictured below). Perhaps it’s
because I don’t like the abstract aspect of his paintings as much. I always had
it in my head that I preferred abstract works, but comparing Van Gogh’s work to
the Impressionist works I’ve been looking at over the last few days, I have to
say I prefer the less abstract style of the Impressionist paintings. I think I
need to look at a few more Post-Impressionist artists to decide, though, so
that I get a better feel for the differences between the two styles. That will
be my goal for the next few days!
Paintings I liked:
Wheat Field with Cypresses
The Starry Night
Paintings I didn't like:
Olive Trees
A Corridor in the Asylum
Xoxo, Diana
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