"Expo" is French for "exhibition." And it's much shorter to write.
Over breakfast this morning, I found out that a mother-daughter couple I saw yesterday were Thai. And the mom is an English professor at Kaset! What a coincident. So I asked where they were going today and they said they would go see Frida Kahlo exhibition at Bozar. She met French ladies who came to Brussels just to see the show. By the way, the name Bozar comes from the pronunciation of Palais des Beaux-Arts: French for Palace of Fine Arts). It seems to me that Bozar is intended to accommodate traveling art shows. Due to huge popularity of the Frida's exhibition, visitors are limited to 150 persons who are let in every hour. I arrived at ~13.00 and my turn was at 17.00. Bozar also has the El Groco exhibition which I was also interested so I saw the El Groco one first.
Domenikos Theotokopoulos, mostly known as El Groco (Spanish for "the Greek"), was a 1600-century Greek artist who was based in Toledo, Spain. I wondered why I didn't go see his museum when I went there. Anyway, he's one of my favorite artists so I was glad to see this show. He was famous during his lifetime but became unknown until the 1900s. I like his almost cartoon-like coloring and drawing. Elongated bodies. Slim & expressive faces and eyes. Sharp body contours. Strong color. Solid-color background. He's famous for his portraits & religious paintings. The show ended with his oils portraying Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles (one in each frame). The picture on the left is one of them. I just learned that St. Peter is signified by his two keys: one for heaven's gate and the other for hell.
Thanks to the Bozar's web site, I could link this lovely images to my blog....
I still have time left to kill, so I got something to eat and rested my legs. I knitted while listening to Luangpor Sumedho's talks. Having it on really cut me from the rest of the world. Still, I had 1.5 hours and thus decided to see another show: Imágenes del Mexicano which was about Mexican arts since the colonization period up until the recent 20th century. The show was okay, but it makes me want to go to Mexico and South America. Oh, and I just knew that Mexicans have had strong beliefs in rebirths. Despite Christianity, this old belief still largely survives today. The image on the right is of a deceased young man. It was common in those days to have a portrait of a recently died person, especially young ones (the child's mortality rate in the old days was as high as 50%, even in Europe). This custom was once common in Europe as well: I saw this kind of portraits in Antwerp.
This Mexican art "expo" nicely complements the Frida Kahlo show. I was slightly disappointed as it was much smaller than I thought. Only 24 pieces. We were given a small booklet that provided a short description of each work (it consisted of four sections, each one for Flemish, French, German and English.). I have seen the movie Frida that told her story. She had polio when she was young so one leg was much thinner than the other. As if limping wasn't bad enough, the tram she was in was hit by another car, so her vertebrae, her pelvis, her kidney, and other body parts were broken. The new information that I just learned from this show was that she was also anorexic which indicated that she wasn't that happy with herself.
She met Diego when he was already married, so essentially Frida lured him from his former wife. Diego was a womanizer so he had many affairs, including one with Frida's sister. And she paid him back in kind; she also had lovers. To me, the law of karma is so obvious: you get what you have done.
Anyhow, I like Frida's works and admired her tenacity for physical and mental difficulties, but I wonder if what she could have been happier...
Well, going back a little, this morning, I visited the Cathedral which also has its own art exhibition going on. I wonder what churches in Europe do with the decline in the number of devotees. And I think of a church in Amsterdam, London and New York City that were converted into a restaurant and a bar. This "reuse" would be unimaginable in Asia. Be it, a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue or a Buddhist temple.
And I walked around the shopping area. My goal was to buy a charger for my digital camera, and I did find it. I missed Asian food so I had Chinese. The waiters can speak Chinese, English and French!! These ladies are more capable, language-wise, than I am..
I found that when I don't shop during my travel, I save a lot of time. Of course, I window shop, but I don't go in and look carefully. A Thai weekly news article that I recently read talked about the similarity between millionaires' desire to have more money and shopaholics' desire to buy more clothes and shoes. Some people, say me?, already have loads of outfits and still they want more. I was going to buy Rosetti's shoes but decided not to. I love the ones that I have as they're very high-quality and nicely designed. But I was like, hmm..., how can I get anywhere spiritually, if I keep spoiling myself? Perhaps, the truth is that I just don't want to carry lots of stuff with me to Helsinki.
Oh, little French that I have slowly come back (I was in French-speaking Montreal, Canada, for a year). Today I was asked if I wanted an audio guide in "Anglais" or "Francais." I could answer him correctly. And I know what he meant when he said "S'il vous plait..." (Please...). I just love how French sounds, but I am not necessarily into French-speaking guys. By the way, Brussels seems to have a large number of gay men. I've seen a number of them over the two days I'm here.
Lastly, I found that being happy and upset have similar effects of making me off center. Of course, I still prefer being delighted, but I slowly come to accept that they're not that different.
Over breakfast this morning, I found out that a mother-daughter couple I saw yesterday were Thai. And the mom is an English professor at Kaset! What a coincident. So I asked where they were going today and they said they would go see Frida Kahlo exhibition at Bozar. She met French ladies who came to Brussels just to see the show. By the way, the name Bozar comes from the pronunciation of Palais des Beaux-Arts: French for Palace of Fine Arts). It seems to me that Bozar is intended to accommodate traveling art shows. Due to huge popularity of the Frida's exhibition, visitors are limited to 150 persons who are let in every hour. I arrived at ~13.00 and my turn was at 17.00. Bozar also has the El Groco exhibition which I was also interested so I saw the El Groco one first.
Thanks to the Bozar's web site, I could link this lovely images to my blog....
She met Diego when he was already married, so essentially Frida lured him from his former wife. Diego was a womanizer so he had many affairs, including one with Frida's sister. And she paid him back in kind; she also had lovers. To me, the law of karma is so obvious: you get what you have done.
Anyhow, I like Frida's works and admired her tenacity for physical and mental difficulties, but I wonder if what she could have been happier...
Well, going back a little, this morning, I visited the Cathedral which also has its own art exhibition going on. I wonder what churches in Europe do with the decline in the number of devotees. And I think of a church in Amsterdam, London and New York City that were converted into a restaurant and a bar. This "reuse" would be unimaginable in Asia. Be it, a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue or a Buddhist temple.
And I walked around the shopping area. My goal was to buy a charger for my digital camera, and I did find it. I missed Asian food so I had Chinese. The waiters can speak Chinese, English and French!! These ladies are more capable, language-wise, than I am..
I found that when I don't shop during my travel, I save a lot of time. Of course, I window shop, but I don't go in and look carefully. A Thai weekly news article that I recently read talked about the similarity between millionaires' desire to have more money and shopaholics' desire to buy more clothes and shoes. Some people, say me?, already have loads of outfits and still they want more. I was going to buy Rosetti's shoes but decided not to. I love the ones that I have as they're very high-quality and nicely designed. But I was like, hmm..., how can I get anywhere spiritually, if I keep spoiling myself? Perhaps, the truth is that I just don't want to carry lots of stuff with me to Helsinki.
Oh, little French that I have slowly come back (I was in French-speaking Montreal, Canada, for a year). Today I was asked if I wanted an audio guide in "Anglais" or "Francais." I could answer him correctly. And I know what he meant when he said "S'il vous plait..." (Please...). I just love how French sounds, but I am not necessarily into French-speaking guys. By the way, Brussels seems to have a large number of gay men. I've seen a number of them over the two days I'm here.
Lastly, I found that being happy and upset have similar effects of making me off center. Of course, I still prefer being delighted, but I slowly come to accept that they're not that different.
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