Just taking a break from studying Art History.

i think it's safe to say that this is the longest I've gone without blogging in like 2 years.

These past few weeks have been some of the hardest I've ever had, where college is concerned. It's kind of draining and exhausting and overwhelming and other such synonyms to those words.

I just successfully memorized 25 slides {which includes but is definitely not limited to: Name of piece, artist, years, place found, museum currently in, style, and 9-13 things about the piece}

and to celebrate, I will blog and tell you some of the fun names I have to memorize so you can better appreciate the difficulty for my brain.

apoxymenos, praxiteles, alexandros of antioch on-the-meander, lysippos, laocoon, paestum, epigonos, athanodoros, hagesandros, polydoros of rhodes, iktinor, kallikrates, dionysos, epigonos, Hagia triada, myron, etc.

Don't you wish you were me?? seriously. if they were names like john hansen and william smith, and robert johnson, this would be ten bajillion times easier. But, I guess if this art is mostly in Greece, they're greek names.

Also, the names of the pieces would be easier if they were labelled, nude man 1, nude man on steroids, nude man dying, partially nude woman, nude woman going to bathe, nude man throwing a discus, etc.

okay, that was a little bad. I actually do like some of this art. I like learning about it, I just honestly cannot see the point in memorizing the names and years. There is never going to be a time in my life where someone is going to say, "If you don't tell me the correct year the Venus de Milo was created in, your family will die." Why? A-because no one knows for sure the exact date most of these were done in and b- it's the easiest thing in the world to google it and see. We live in a world where random facts don't need to be memorized. I'd so much rather memorize why it's important and just the facts about it.

Anyway, I have vocab to work on next. But this was a nice rant and let some of my stress fly away.

in closing, I will give you a few pictures of some of the stuff I'm memorizing.

Censored for the children and for the males, and for the other Brianna's of the world that still doesn't understand why everyone was naked in art back then {or I guess now, too}. No one walks around naked everywhere.

So, in case you didn't know, Hermes, the adult here, is teasing his little brother with Grapes. Because the little baby here is Dionsyos, who is the god of wine. You don't see the grapes dangling from his handless-hand? me neither. But somehow, every art history teacher says there were grapes there. So we have to memorize it.
I feel like sometimes I don't believe them. How do we not know this was just an adult and a baby staring weirdly naked at each other?

this is Aphrodite of Knidos. the story goes that aphrodite saw this sculpture and exclaimed, "When did Praxiteles {the artist} see me naked?!?!" True story. Well, I don't know if aphrodite really said that, but that is what my art history book says. I highlighted that because it was funny. I might have added more exclamations though. Also, this is the first nude sculpture of a woman, in case you were wondering.

So now, I bid you ado.

p.s. I carved a pumpkin tonight for FHE with a mustache. :D