Written assignments are not set for every area we study on this module. Perhaps it's just as well since we appear to be touring all corners of the globe in the guise of observational time-travellers. Cleopatra to Madonna, Plato to Stalin, Marlowe to the Dalai Lama and everything, everywho, everywhen in between.
A smorgasbord of educational delights.
My reactions to each part differ hugely and these responses serve to convince me that my choice of degree (philosophy and psychology) is right for me. Cleopatra represents an era I have a fascination with but I am more interested in the 'how's and 'why's than the 'what's and 'when's. This, along with my only moderate interest in Stalin's career but overwhelming desire to dissect his psyche, assures me (if assurance were needed) that history is definitely NOT for me and that psychology definitely IS.
Good timing as we are now able to sign up for our next module and I can confidently confirm the psychology option I already suspected I would choose
Paul Cézanne, artist of the Impressionist era, receives the benefit of our attention, though there is no associated assignment. I reach this point a little behind on coursework, having taken a break to finish book editing, and am tempted to skim the chapter or even come back to it later, but I like art and I have heard of Cézanne (though wouldn't have recognised his work) so I stick with the schedule. The chapter was written by art historian Charles Harrison. I have taken to 'googling' the writer of each chapter as they often have very interesting backgrounds and I find this engages me more immediately with what they've written. Mr Harrison, I discover, is sadly no longer with us but I am grateful to him for leaving us with the brilliantly guided work of this chapter in our humble textbook.
Assisted by OU mini tutorials and my own choice of online documentaries, layer by layer he almost imperceptibly peels away the flaky skins of my ignorance until like a steam train hitting me full in the chest, a lightning bolt of understanding strikes me and leaves me physically reeling. It is such a powerful reaction, it frightens my dog!
Suddenly, the unsentimental but powerfully attentive detail, the energy, the almost puritanical honesty, his absolute unyielding to expectation, the rejection of black and white tones in favour of colour - all from this strange, difficult, single-minded non-conformist who cannot help but to call a spade a spade in his own language. There and then, I got it..in spades of his own making. Instantly I looked with 'the right kind of eyes' and I saw. And it jolted every fibre of my being.
I look back at the prints of his work to find my 'new eyes' are a permanent fixture. The translucent perfection of work by the Italian artist I'd previously preferred suddenly seems hollow and contrived while Cézanne's 'Bathers' leap from the page suffused with a meaning and energy I was blind to before. I'm feeling a bit dazed and so is the dog. I suggest to him we go to the café for lunch. He agrees that this is a good plan, largely on account of the fact that he will get biscuits.
Ensconced, with some relief, in said café, a consoling Bonio issued to my long-suffering hound, I momentarily relax only to be hit with a second wave of related realisation. It seems to me that we are all currently stuck in the same place as the council that judged Cézanne's work back in the day. Drawn to the blandly obvious, stylised things around us whilst blindly dismissing the less aesthetically-pleasing realities. All this obsession with living contrived, socially acceptable lives, suffocating in meaningless, interior designed houses, hiding our souls from the sun when in fact the base reality and beauty of being truly human is this amorphous, unconsciously interactive relationship that we have with the world and people around us.
I am exhausted but exhilarated. And also sad because I have no-one but the dog to share this revelation with and he makes it clear he really can't take any more. Inevitably, my poor, beleaguered tutor gets the dubious honour of an apologetic e.mail which he takes sensitively and responds to in good part,
I suspect he was simply relieved not to get another blasted sonnet...
Thunderbolt City...
Written assignments are not set for every area we study on this module. Perhaps it's just as well since we appear to be touring all corners of the globe in the guise of observational time-travellers. Cleopatra to Madonna, Plato to Stalin, Marlowe to the Dalai Lama and everything, everywho, everywhen in between.
A smorgasbord of educational delights.
My reactions to each part differ hugely and these responses serve to convince me that my choice of degree (philosophy and psychology) is right for me. Cleopatra represents an era I have a fascination with but I am more interested in the 'how's and 'why's than the 'what's and 'when's. This, along with my only moderate interest in Stalin's career but overwhelming desire to dissect his psyche, assures me (if assurance were needed) that history is definitely NOT for me and that psychology definitely IS.
Good timing as we are now able to sign up for our next module and I can confidently confirm the psychology option I already suspected I would choose
Paul Cézanne, artist of the Impressionist era, receives the benefit of our attention, though there is no associated assignment. I reach this point a little behind on coursework, having taken a break to finish book editing, and am tempted to skim the chapter or even come back to it later, but I like art and I have heard of Cézanne (though wouldn't have recognised his work) so I stick with the schedule. The chapter was written by art historian Charles Harrison. I have taken to 'googling' the writer of each chapter as they often have very interesting backgrounds and I find this engages me more immediately with what they've written. Mr Harrison, I discover, is sadly no longer with us but I am grateful to him for leaving us with the brilliantly guided work of this chapter in our humble textbook.
Assisted by OU mini tutorials and my own choice of online documentaries, layer by layer he almost imperceptibly peels away the flaky skins of my ignorance until like a steam train hitting me full in the chest, a lightning bolt of understanding strikes me and leaves me physically reeling. It is such a powerful reaction, it frightens my dog!
Suddenly, the unsentimental but powerfully attentive detail, the energy, the almost puritanical honesty, his absolute unyielding to expectation, the rejection of black and white tones in favour of colour - all from this strange, difficult, single-minded non-conformist who cannot help but to call a spade a spade in his own language. There and then, I got it..in spades of his own making. Instantly I looked with 'the right kind of eyes' and I saw. And it jolted every fibre of my being.
I look back at the prints of his work to find my 'new eyes' are a permanent fixture. The translucent perfection of work by the Italian artist I'd previously preferred suddenly seems hollow and contrived while Cézanne's 'Bathers' leap from the page suffused with a meaning and energy I was blind to before. I'm feeling a bit dazed and so is the dog. I suggest to him we go to the café for lunch. He agrees that this is a good plan, largely on account of the fact that he will get biscuits.
Ensconced, with some relief, in said café, a consoling Bonio issued to my long-suffering hound, I momentarily relax only to be hit with a second wave of related realisation. It seems to me that we are all currently stuck in the same place as the council that judged Cézanne's work back in the day. Drawn to the blandly obvious, stylised things around us whilst blindly dismissing the less aesthetically-pleasing realities. All this obsession with living contrived, socially acceptable lives, suffocating in meaningless, interior designed houses, hiding our souls from the sun when in fact the base reality and beauty of being truly human is this amorphous, unconsciously interactive relationship that we have with the world and people around us.
I am exhausted but exhilarated. And also sad because I have no-one but the dog to share this revelation with and he makes it clear he really can't take any more. Inevitably, my poor, beleaguered tutor gets the dubious honour of an apologetic e.mail which he takes sensitively and responds to in good part,
I suspect he was simply relieved not to get another blasted sonnet...