Hilly

It is great in our area in some ways. We have a number of hills in the surrounding area which are created from the groundworks that helped build the neighbourhood and metro line. They provide a great place to sit and watch the planes come and go, and to enjoy a nice sunset or sunrise if one can get up that early. It of course also creates a great little natural wild park, and on this site a bike track for the BMXers of the area. Also, in the area you can easily find wild plums, hops, and horseradish.

Wild horseradish leaves

The wild hops

Wild hops soon to be in a beer

Modern art vs quality art

Recently the national museum had an exhibition of Mark Rothko. Now I have seen a far amount of art in my time and some I love, some I loathe and others just pass by. Many talented artists don't get realised in life because their style is too strong or too similar to others. Then of course there are times when an artist becomes famous because of who buys it. From my experience and in my opinion this doesn't make a good artist, but makes someone else a lot of money. There are many examples in the art world, in my eyes, of people who become famous through the sale phenomenon and then those that become famous because they are dead and can no longer add to the art world/collections and therfore increases their value. Which of all these categories does Mr Rothko fit into?

For me the sentence about Mozart sums it up. As long as you stop after the word genius.

A bunch of painting bloks and one lady.

When Rothko tried to paint things that exist. You can see his imbalanced nature of perspective.

I think this man and his posture sum up what many people think of Rothko.

I think that Rothko is a poor excuse for a painter, one of those people that was launched by having a tight knit ex-pat group around him and an early influential purchaser of his paintings in the name of Guggenheim. A trend setter will help. There is a message to all struggling artists, find a trend setter and pester them enough to buy your paintings and display them, and you are on easy street. It is also quite evident that Rothko had deteriorating eyesight and could never do fine or detailed work and I guess big slabs of square colours sums up his skill in my eyes, especially that it is ironically called multiforms.

Instead I would prefer people to enjoy the old Masters, full of rich details and livery it is, to me, what art is about. Luckily the National Museum has a good collection of these too, so I pottered off there instead. It is much more fun to see and details are abound.

So many old masters loved dogs.

more dogs

A cow that thinks it is bread

A disappointed cow?

Warsaw rooftops.

The newly refurbished/rearranged National Museum.

Leaving disappointed by the looks of it.

Some night painting from me.

night painting

I like this.

And off on some public transport. Homeward bound.

Biking about Warsaw

As the threat of snow looms high in the air, let us remember the time of t-shirts and sunshine when we could bike about town freely.

Other hotels are available.

Other reptiles are available

other cancers are available

I do love that a major supplier of wedding and engagement rings is called... Apart.

Powisle spaghetti and meatballs, other forms of pasta are available.

And city bikes in the foreground other forms of transport are available (but biking is best)

National stadium

free hammocks next to the national stadium

Or tai chi, other forms of relaxation are available

In Praga (the East/Right bank) there is a nice park called Park Skarszewski, next to the Wedel chocolate factory. There is this little cafe which has received rave reviews.

However, the cakes were rankly over sweet, even this orange cake

After eating half of each piece we nearly wanted to vomit.

Not even the super weak and disgusting coffee could cover the flavour. It is built in an old public toilet so kudos for that, but the food and coffee taste like it still is a public toilet. My hot tip, avoid.