Apropos of Nothing

Yesterday my National Gallery daily calander was a Paul Klee. Meh. I don't like Paul Klee. This one in particular bugs me, because a sailboat? In weird pseudo-pointalist primary colors? What?

Generally I'm not too fond of the whole surrealist movement because frankly I think if they had just stayed with expressionism (It's like impressionism! For people who like their art not on umbrellas!) we all would have been a lot happier and would never have had to deal with the "art" that is Duchamp's The Fountain. Oh, shut up, I know that the point of that was to prove that anything can be art even stuff that's not art and ow, my head hurts and I don't care a urinal turned upside down is NOT ART.

I don't hate Paul Klee. Not as much as I hate Dali. I really, really dislike the bendy clocks. They tend to piss me off something fierce. Why are the clocks bendy? I get a desert feel everytime I look at it, but it's not really a desert is it? There's a huge body of water or something at the top. Gah. What does it all mean!?!?!

Urgh. This is why I much prefer art pre-1700. Easy to understand. The subject? Always a Bible story, lovingly purchased with money from the Inquisition by benevolent Mother Church to prevent the poor illiterate fools from burning in hell for all eternity. A woman? Probably Mary. Unless she looked like a slut, in which case it was Mary Magdalene. Chances are there is a crucifixion going on, and if you're too stupid to understand the crucifixion, you're probably too stupid to be saved anyway.

Oddly enough, I am not repulsed by Mark Rothko, although logically if upturned urinals piss me off, blocks of random color should really make me mad. But they don't. They're kind of pretty. And very simple. Like they would look good in a living room. (Not mine, because I just visibly winced when I bought a latte, but maybe someone's.) And I do feel badly that he killed himself.

Wow. I really meant to just write one sentance about how I hate Paul Klee. Now you have my feelings on all modern art. Anyway, my page-a-day today was Cezanne. Meh. I don't much like the impressionists, and he was tail-end impressionist, but that's a story for another day. It's better than Klee.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you the story about how I was watching CSPAN (shut up) and Tony Blair made a joke about desiring the French PM in many positions. It was funny.