Day 118: Music and art
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 118
— Music and art
28-November-1971
(Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Saw three films today on music and art. One on
Krenek, Haver, and surrealistic painting. Not the
most exciting films. Many of the pictures they used
were similar to one’s I took (i.e. a flower). A new
danger is that something like this can seem corny.
Also, seeing a picture of the composer’s face, while
his music is playing, can be corny. So, beware of
something like these. Of course, you can turn it into
something funny or humorous.
La
Bohème at night. The more I see
it, the more I love it.
REFLECTIONS
Contemporary
art films. Today, I
look at contemporary art films. I enjoy contemporary
art as well as music. I think when I was in middle
school or high school, I painted a replica of
Salvador Dali’s
famous
surrealistic wilted-clock
painting—The
Persistence of Memory.
My
mother hung that painting on the wall for many
years. P.S. I don’t know how to paint. I wish I
did.
Just like with contemporary music, contemporary art
films (avant-garde) can be interesting or not. I
comment that some of the pictures were like ones that
I would photograph in college (flowers, inanimate
objects). My mother once said, “Why don’t you take
pictures of people?” I should listen more. Use of
these kinds of images can be powerful, interesting,
or corny. I am guessing it was a type of minimalism.
You can look at a picture of a flower and immerse
yourself in it’s beauty, or you might say, “What?
It’s a flower.” Regardless, it’s good for me to be
exposed to all types of contemporary art and music.
Europe was the place where this was happening in
1971. Sure, the U.S. was also active, but I was in
Europe. 
La
Boheme. Again.
Can’t get enough of this opera. ay 100: 100th Anniversary">Day
100 Note
that this is only November, and I’ve seen more
concerts and operas than in a decade in the U.S.
John
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