Artistic part of the evening

Yesterday’s dinner with some friends was very great and amazingly artistic. It was great because it was my first good meal (it means that I could actually chew the food properly) since my last visit to the dentist. And it was artistic because paintings and visual artists were actually the main subjects of the conversation.

To please my stomach, I had a mushroom soup for starter and a delicious roasted white fish with lemon mayonnaise and asparagus for main course. The main course was a surprising meal because the fish was roasted almost like a piece of meat, with crispy and soft, flaky textures all together. VERY YUMMY!

I wish I could eat that dish more often.

(Stop whining, woman, you can always go to that restaurant anytime you want!)

Okay, I will! For now let’s go to the artistic part of that evening.

I am a fan of a subjective art form such as Expressionism, perhaps because the artists have the tendency to distort reality for an emotional effect. I have read and learnd quite a lot of some important movements and developments of expressionism.

Like for instance Fauvism movement that was developed in France in 1905. They called themselves as Les Fauves (= The Wild Beasts), which’s a short-lived 20th century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational values retained by Impressionism.

Berlin Street Scene (1913) by Kirchner

Portrait of A Woman (1911) by Kirchner

Another movement was Die Brücke (german for The Bridge), which was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named.

Le Rifain Assis (1912 - 1913) by Matisse

Madras Rouge (1907) by Matisse

Nostalgic Desires

Today I woke up in a very cold and icy morning. I wondered about what and how one person should do to spend her day off in this kind of weather. Well, I didn’t think that much; I just skipped jogging and took a very long shower instead. I feel like a million bucks afterward.

After having a full breakfast, I remembered one particular present that a friend gave me for my birthday a few years ago, which I haven’t paid my fully attention to – Pierre-Auguste Renoir – a very colorful art book to spend my day off with.

Hear! Hear! Browsing Renoir’s art book turned out to be a very awesome way to spend my day off!

I know that the art works of the Impressionists are well known and frequently reproduced, but they are probably not as popular as those works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In his art works he shows us the picture of a happy family life that’s set in sunny gardens, which evokes a sense of a lost paradise to the modern spectators.

What we often see is not an objective depiction of life in the 19th century, but the embodiment of Renoir’s own nostalgic desires. I think that it is almost impossible to fully understand Renoir’s art works without being aware of them. These are some of his art works to spend your day off with:

renoir

renoir

renoir

Vanabbemuseum Goes Web 2.0

This afternoon I had a very important meeting with my manager about social media marketing. She asked me to put my ideas and expertise into a creative social media marketing strategy that actually works for our museum, Vanabbemuseum. Vanabbemuseum is a museum of modern art located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

The museum has a large collection of art works by Jan Sluijters, Carel Willink and Isaac Israëls. More recent acquisitions include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. The museum is also internationally renowned for having one of the largest collections of art works by El Lissitzky.

Jan SluijtersEl LissitzkyPiet Mondrian

In attempt to reach more audience, a creative social media marketing strategy has to be created and implemented. Social media marketing tools that the museum would like to use include Twitter, Facebook, forum, RSS and other collaborative Internet form of media. Vanabbemuseum has already its own Twitter account that needs to be upgraded.

Starting tomorrow, I will be working on that social media marketing strategy that aims to reach more audience, especially our young generation that needs to be introduced to our museum and its modern art collections. This social media marketing strategy is going to be one of long term marketing campaigns of our museum. Vanabbemuseum goes Web 2.0, finally!