China, Paris, meet Dixie

Last weekend was incredible. I went to Atlanta to see the Terracota Army exhibit on display at the High Museum of Art. It was way impressive.

For those of you not in the know, the first Chinese emperor was obsessed with ruling forever. He had thousands of lifesize stone warrior statues buried underground at his tomb site to protect him in the afterlife. Each one of these statues is unique, and considering the materials and methods of the time, the massive undertaking is very impressive.

I was not alone in that assessment. It appears that a lot of other people thought the same way I did. The museum was packed with people. It took me 30 minutes waiting in line just to get a ticket. And those who purchased tickets ahead of time online fared no better. Their lines moved just as slowly, because the attendants who were distributing/selling tickets were also trying to sell everyone on a membership to the museum. Then it was another 45 minutes in line for the actual exhibit before I actually got in. But it was well worth everything I exerted to get there.

And I got a special bonus: The admission I paid admitted to the entire museum, so I also got to see a special exhibit on loan from the Louvre in Paris! It was a series of paintings, sculpture, and drawings that exemplified the evolution of the concept of masterpiece down from medieval times and especially its "transformation" of sorts into what is called a reception piece. Apparently around the 16th century there was this fancy shmansy art circle in France, and to join you had to produce a reception piece. This concept turned the convention idea of a masterpiece -- a work which resembled the ultimate lifetime achievement of an artist -- on its head.

And then of course there was all of the modern art, which still to this day escapes me. I saw a giant green trapezoid attached to a wall, and I thought to myself that I once cut out a similar shape from construction paper in the first grade. The difference is that my work is largely forgotten in some decomposing landfill while this one is much larger and actually making someone lots of money. I wonder if it's the size that matters.

The best was this display of wooden logs arranged in a square spiral formation on the floor. Each log had an area of about six inches square with a height of about two and a half feet. I could not help but think that someone had stolen some Lincoln Logs from the Green Giant and then set them up on end like dominos. Seriously, I'd like to get this modern art deal, but for some reason it continues to escape me. A friend of mine once said that modern art is like that story about the emperor's new clothes; a bunch of slickters are able to convince the snobs of society that they are better than everyone else because they are inside the circle that no one else can understand when in fact they are being left naked in their ignorance for all the world to see. I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that there really is something to this modern art thing, because I can see great value in art from previous centuries. I just have a hard time seeing what I want to see.

Anywho, I enjoyed my trip very much. I certainly felt ennobled by my brush with culture and look forward to more delving in the future.