Criticizing

For this assignment we were asked to criticize one of our classmate's blog, and after tumbling around them for a while I chose Valentina Contente's. I had only visited it once previously, but today I got the chance to read all of her posts. I don't regret doing so.



First, I must say I really like the way she writes, I think it's very entertaining and engaging. I particularly like the fact that she usually chooses to write about subjects I enjoy or feelings that I share, like her love for YouTube. I think that her blog's design is fun (I almost chose it myself), because despite the fact it has a dark background she adds different coloured posts, so it has a feeling of vibrancy. However, I think it would be nice if she added a list of her favourite links, so that people who visit her blog and had similar interests (like me!) could discover interesting sites that she enjoys visiting, and learn a bit more about her personality. I would also rearrange her blog's layout, as it would make it smoother to read and a bit more organized. But maybe that's just me.

Though I have enjoyed reading all of her posts I would have to say that my favourite one was "Shoes & Dreams", in which she spoke about The red model, a painting by Magritte she likes a lot. The reason I liked it so much is because I had to do a similar art project to the one she speaks of while I was in high school, and we had also just finished studying Magritte. This is why I could really identify with what she went through trying to make an artistic production on its basis. It was very interesting to read her thoughts on what the painting meant; I actually feel as if I know a bit more about her now, and it's nice to know that we have had some similar experiences back in school. A thought that crossed my mind after reading about how she tried to interpretate the surrealistic picture was "I've definitely been there!".

I recommend you to visit Valentina's blog, I think you'll really enjoy it!
Here's the URL:
http://inglichyeah.blogspot.com/2008/10/shoes-dreams.html#comments

Le Baiser

Choosing my favourite art piece was really tough, I thought it through for what seemed like hours and I simply couldn't make up my mind. Should I choose a classical piece? or maybe something a bit more modern? perhaps a surreal painting by Dalí? or Van Gogh's post-impressionism in The Starry Night? Quite frankly, it was exhausting. I really wanted to make sure that I had an intense feeling for the piece I chose, that I was passionate about it, and that it represented me in some way. That's when I realised I was overthinking it way too much. That's also when inspiration struck: I settled on choosing Le Baiser, by Auguste Rodin.

The Kiss in marble at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Taken from Wikipedia.

Rodin was a French sculptor widely considered the father of modern sculpture. His works are known mainly because they model the human body with realism and celebrate individual character and physicality, rather than being decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic, as were the works of the Predominant Figures sculpture tradition. He is also well known for being the teacher (as well as the lover) of Camille Claudel, another French sculptress. His most famous pieces are L'Âge d'airain (The Age of Bronze), Le Penseur (The Thinker), and Le Baiser (The Kiss).
Le Baiser is one of my favourite sculptures because of the story that inspired Rodin to create it. It represents a man and a woman in a passionate embrace about to kiss (though the sculpture is called "The Kiss", the lips of the characters are not actually touching), and the scene they recreate belongs to a story within Dante's Inferno. Said story was inspired in reality, as it immortalizes the tale of a 13th century noblewoman called Francesca da Rimini, who was forced to marry nobleman Giovanni Malatesta by an arranged marriage, only to fall in love with her husband's younger brother, Paolo. It is told that they fell in love while reading together the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and were about to kiss when they were discovered and killed by Giovanni.
The sculpture portrays the moment when they fell for each other, the innocence of a first kiss, and the fulfillment of a forbidden love. The embrace is tender, yet passionate. Details like the way their feet touch the ground, and the contrast between the roughness of the marble and the smoothness of the sculpted image are what attract me so much to the piece. To me, it's like capturing a spark of life in marble, the characters only lack breath to be real.
I can't remember when I saw Le Baiser for the first time, but what I do remember is rediscovering it while on a trip in Buenos Aires, where I was able to see it in an exposition of Rodin's and Claudel's work. It was then when I learned the story behind it, and it has remained ever since ingrained in my mind.

Stonehenge was 'Lourdes of prehistoric Europe', claim archaelogists

Photo: Getty Images

The Guardian's online site, in its Archaeology section, has a very interesting article written by Maev Kennedy about new evidence found in Stonehenge. Said evidence could mean that this iconic site used to be a healing place to which people from all over the continent were drawn as early as 7,000BC.

Kennedy reports that archaeologists Tim Darvil and Geoffrey Wainwright discovered some scraps of charred wood and a little pile of stone chips that would be, according to them, evidence to prove that people around that time used to believe in the healing power of "bluestones", which are big pieces of spotted dolomite, making Stonehenge not only a giant calendar to mark the solstices as well as a site of ancestor worship, but a place to search for health.

Darvil and Wainwright believe that the bluestones, which are roughly the size of a man, are actually the centrepiece of Stonehenge, and that the much more impressive sarsens (the bigger pieces of stone that surround them) are just an architectural framework for them. The theory that supports this is that, according to their excavation results, the bluestones would have been brought to Stonehenge from North Wales (250km away) using just human effort because of the belief that they had strong healing powers, and in an effort to add more significance to a place that was already of ancient nature. They have also found evidence of people being buried with small fragments of bluestone, many of them bearing signs of pain or illness, which would reinforce their theory of the beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of the area. The significance of the charred wood mentioned earlier is that it was the only organic remain linked to the bluestone chips, thus, it was the only mean of dating the site.

If correctly interpreted, the findings of these two archaeologists would certainly change a great deal of the theories made earlier by other researchers, implying a much more complex story that previously thought, even involving Romans seeking the healing magic of this site. Still, Mr. Wainwright claims that the investigation is a work in progress and that there's much more to be found.

I think this theory is really interesting, and it gives me the hope that there's still lots of work to be done by us, aspiring archaeologists, in the future. Nevertheless, I would like to look for more information about this subject before considering it to be a plausible theory because I think it's assumptions are a bit of a stretch, considering the evidence they provide.

I recommend you to check out the whole article (and the Guardian's Archaeology section) if you want to learn more about this fascinating (at least for me!) subject.
Here's the URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/sep/22/archaeology