This weekend has been a weekend filled with art and other good things. I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier but I've been wanting to get out and actually see things that I've thought would be cool to go and see or do, some of these things have been on the to do list for ages and I did some this weekend. On Friday I went to see a gallery/museum that I'd recently heard about and which seemed to have quite a nice collection of art. I hadn't expected to need to pay to get in but I went on in anyway and was happily surprised when the lady at the desk let me in for the student price even though I'm not a student and informed her of such. Other than the employees I had the place to myself and enjoyed a ramble through the building, which is pretty cool in it's own right, looking at art from the 17th and 18th centuries, maybe the 19th, I didn't really pay attention to that. I happily looked on prints by Rembrandt and Albrecht Durer and paintings by several other artists who are not really known to me. I was especially drawn to the gallery by their claim of having works by Carl Bloch, I did see wonderful prints and drawings by Bloch but was a bit disappointed to learn that their Bloch paintings were actually reproductions, as were a lot of their other pieces (I decided that they must make reproductions). Despite so many reproductions I felt that I'd seen enough to be worth my price of entry.
Friday evening I went to a few galleries participating in the local gallery stroll; as part of my goals for art I've been wanting to go to gallery stroll more and to see more of the local galleries. I went to two galleries and decided that the one was not one I would be interested in working with and the other I would be. It was good to get out and to see them though.
Saturday was the biggest art day this weekend. Two of my friends and I went to see the big Carl Bloch exhibit at the MOA, us and at least a hundred other people. I was really excited to see this exhibit, I'd heard it was wonderful and I admire Bloch, especially as I've been learning more about him and his work. Having so many other people there really made me appreciate how nice it is to be at a museum or gallery with a lot less people, it's quieter and you can view works better without fighting to see them. Anyway I really enjoyed the exhibit, they had several alter pieces that Block painted as well as many other paintings he did. It was interesting to talk to one of my friends after, she had had a very spiritual experience (as well she should because most of the works in the exhibit were religious, focusing on Christ) but for me, while I enjoyed the spiritual nature of the works I was viewing them more as an artist, in the presence of works that were so beautiful, I was analyzing how and why they were so beautiful, composition etc.
I hope that I can have more weekends like this.

Albrecht Durer Correction

Okay, so this is the second time I've heard this story in sacrament meeting and I'd like to put a stop to it because however sentimental a story, it's not true. There is a story that's apparently going around about Albrecht Durer and a work of his. The first time I heard this story was in a talk in sacrament meeting about a year ago, I perked up because Albrecht Durer is one of my favorite artists, but as the speaker went on I realized that the story couldn't be true because it contradicted most of what I've read about him.
The story goes that Albrect Durer the Senior and his wife had 18 children and Albrecht Durer (the artist) and his brother Albert both wanted to be artists but their father couldn't or wouldn't pay for them to go to art school so they flipped a coin or something to that effect to determine who would go to school first and who would work to support the brother in school, they would switch later. Albrecht won the coin toss and went to school and became the talented famous artist. When the time came for him to support his brother in school, his brother's hands were too messed up from working in a coal mine or similarly unpleasant occupation. To honor his brother Durer drew his brother's hands in the piece called "Praying Hands"
That is the story. Now to get to the many reasons why this story isn't true. First and foremost, "Praying Hands" was a sketch for another piece, it was not a tribute to a brother but a study of hands, also those hands do not look like the hands of someone who has supposedly had every bone in the hands broken to me, please remember that someone working in a coal mine (etc.) in the 1500s would not be going to the emergency room and getting modern treatment. Next, I haven't ever heard of anything like this in any of my studies of Durer and frankly it's something that I think art historians would have picked up on. Yet another problem was that I don't know if there even was an art academy in Durer's time, Durer learned by being an apprentice in the workshop of another artist, traveling to Italy etc. Another problem, I don't know that most people even worry about Durer's siblings, they're not as important as him histoicly, he might not have even had a brother Albert. I hope at this point I have sufficiently convinced anyone reading that while this story is very nice and touching, it's not true. If you've just got to have this story you could change it to some fictional artist and then you'd be fine. If you hear it, perhaps you could pass it on to the teller that it's not true. Thank you.
Incidently you really should look into Durer because he was an absolutly amazing artist.