Russian Extra Credit - THE BLINDING LIGHT OF HISTORY

My past few posts have been in Russian, or about Russian things. As people close to me know, I have been studying Russian for about five years. Presently, I'm finishing up a class at UNM called "Russian 202" which is a second year, second semester, Russian course. I'm conversational, but definitely not fluent. I prefer to turn in assignments on my blog, which makes to polish them to a point where they are more than disposable artifacts of some academic discipline, but rather a way to communicate with people that care about me what I'm up to in my life.

This can be difficult when those people don't speak Russian. So here's one in English!

For an extra credit in my Russian class, our professor said we could check out "THE BLINDING LIGHT OF HISTORY" which is a collection of Russian paintings and drawings at UNM. I decided to check it out, and write a quick blog post about it for extra credit.

In order to see the exhibit, I needed to take an elevator from the lobby of the art museum inside Pope Joy Hall up to the second floor. As soon as I got out of the elevator, I saw the mad Russian monk, greeting me.

Rasputin. I read a biography about him, and I'm pretty certain this guy had supernatural powers. He also had Charles Manson eyes.

I also liked this one. It reminds me of Salvador Dali, my favorite painter after my sister.

I liked this one, since the camping guys remind me of my (Russian) ex-girlfriend's dad. He always likes to chill out by a fire. I see him maybe every six months, and half the time there is a fire burning outside, and all the time there is so much good food and good alcohol.

These were the three paintings I liked. Many of the other paintings seemed kind of depressing, which may have been the intention the (Soviet) artists were going for. Overall, I'm glad I quickly checked out the exhibit. I'm sort of culturally retarded, and culturally insensitive, and this kind of stuff is good for me to do every once in a while to try and grow.