Royal Caribbean Vision of the Seas

Cruising is definitely the most relaxing and hassle free way of travelling across a few countries. My favorite thing to do on the ship is reading a book on the balcony - make sure you reserve a balcony cabin, it's well worth it!

海境/迦南地渡假民宿 Ocean Paradise Resort

去過兩次墾丁，都是住民宿。民宿的環境實在太舒服，老闆又很熱心，沒有理由不住民宿！這間海境民宿位於山上（當然去墾丁旅遊必需自駕），房間全海景更可看到日落，讚！

每到下午茶時間我們總會在外面趕回來吃茶點然後回房間看日落，浴室內有大落地玻璃窗，還可以一邊享受浸浴一邊欣賞日落呢！

海境/迦南地 渡假民宿 Ocean Paradise Resort
恆春鎮山海里紅柴路2-6號
+886-8-8869638
http://www.oceanparadise.com.tw/

鶴雅リゾートスパ 森の謌

去日本的話，最喜歡住和式旅館。上個冬季去了北海道定山溪，入住的是這間鶴雅リゾートスパ 森の謌，由新千歲機場開車過去大概需要兩個小時（由於頗大雪，車速不能太快）。房間選了附設私人溫泉的cottage，下層是客廳，上層是睡房，溫泉及浴室則設於房間外，可以一邊浸溫泉一邊欣賞雪景！

美中不足的是餐廳是洋式buffet style，雖然都有和食，但就欠缺了一點日本風味。

Japanese-style ryokan, with private hot spring.

鶴雅リゾートスパ 森の謌
北海道札幌市南区定山渓温泉東3丁目192番地
81-11-598-2671

http://www.morino-uta.com/rooms/cottage2.html

Seville Hotel: Corral del Rey

另外有一晚入住了這間在Seville市中心的Corral del Rey，其實比較像serviced apartment，極之方便，而且感覺很cosy & warm，feels like a home away from home，下次去Seville可以再住這裡！

A hidden gem right in the middle of the city centre! And the staff was very hospitable too!

Corral del Rey
Corral del Rey 12, 41004 Seville, Spain
+ 34 954 227 116
http://www.corraldelrey.com/

Seville Hotel: AlmaSevilla - Hotel Palacio de Villapanes

介紹一下這間之前在西班牙Seville住過的酒店: AlmaSevilla - Hotel Palacio de Villapanes。在Tripadvisor上排名第三，位置算不上非常方便，但十分喜歡它的lobby和courtyard。近年喜歡入住一些有當地特色房間數量不多的boutique hotels，連鎖集酒店太一式一樣，沒有感情沒有驚喜。頭兩天入住standard room房間不太大（但也很精緻），最後一天upgrade了Executive Suite，有點捨不得離開房間！

Ranked #3 on Tripadvisor, this is one very nice boutique hotel with a historic setting which I like very much.

AlmaSevilla - Hotel Palacio de Villapanes
Santiago 31, 41003 Sevilla
34 954 502 063
http://www.almasevilla.com/en/five-star-hotel-seville/

致我們終將逝去的青春

一向少看國產電影, 一般都太重「娘」味（單看戲名已經說明一切），而且看了一些影評，都說有「那些年」的影子，本來都沒有太大期望。只知道趙薇導演及片中有一幕唱「紅日」，你話有幾吸引！（當然之前完全不知道趙又廷有份演出！所以看的時候絕對有驚喜！）

前半段講國內的大學生活的確沒有很投入，但到後來從女性角度講現代人感情觀有些位卻很有共鳴，甚至有點觸動情緒。女人的命運，是否就是只有這幾種？

比想像中好看！

Art Writing Assignment 2

L’absinthe by Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Dans un café (In a café), also called L’absinthe (Absinthe)

1876

Oil on canvas

92x68cm

Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Often considered as an Impressionist artist, through the unconventional composition used in his paintings and the dynamic portrayal of the spontaneous moments captured, French painter and sculptor Edgar Degas has demonstrated that he is not only an Impressionist painter but also a talented photographer who is capable of executing a snapshot with his brushes and paint.

Edgar Degas

The Bellelli Family

1858–1867

Oil on canvas

200x253 cm

Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Born in Paris in 1834, Degas began to paint early in life.  At the Louvre where he was enlisted as a copyist, he met artist Jean August Dominique, whose advice he would never forget: “Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist.”  He was later admitted to École des Beaux-Arts and soon afterwards he started painting his early masterpiece The Bellelli Family, a portrait of his aunt, her husband, and their two young daughters, intended for exhibition in the Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France.

Having become increasingly disappointed with the rigid rules, judgements and elitism of the Salon, Degas began showing his work with a group of Impressionist artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne who were organizing an independent exhibiting society and soon took a leading role in organising the exhibitions.  Although Degas rejected the term “Impressionism” and preferred to be called a realist, he is regarded as one of the founders and major representatives of Impressionism, due to his innovating composition, perspective analysis of motion, experiment with colours and forms and depictions of contemporary daily life.

L’absinthe was created in 1875-1876 while Degas was living in Paris.  It depicts a scene in a Parisian café where a man and a woman are seated side-by-side behind a rectangular table.  They are positioned to the right of the painting and take up approximately two-thirds of the canvas space.  The scruffy man who wears a hat is smoking a pipe, with his arm on the table, gazing emptily to the right beyond the border of the canvas away from the woman.  Dressed like a prostitute, the woman is staring ahead blankly with an empty expression, oblivious of her surroundings, her arms hanging limply by her side and her back slouching.  On the table before them are two beverages, a glass of green-coloured liquor before the woman and a black coffee before the man.  The green liquor that gives the title of the painting is the notoriously addictive, highly-alcoholic and toxic absinthe, which became very popular in France during 1850s.  The painting was originally named Dans un Café (In a Café) in its first showing in 1876 and was later renamed L’absinthe (Absinthe) by a gallery where it was displayed.  Although in the painting two people are sitting next to each other at the same table, the lack of interaction with each other, the body language and the blank facial expression strongly suggested a sense of loneliness, isolation and despair.  Degas leaves viewers wonder whether it was the addictive alcohol that caused the desolation or was it the increasing social isolation in Paris during its stage of rapid growth that made the couple having to resort to the poisonous drink to escape from reality.

The models posed as the woman and the man in the café are Parisian actress Ellen Andrée and Bohemian artist Marcellin Desboutin.  Degas intended his two models to pose as absinthe addicts in front of his favourite café, the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, which was a popular meeting place situated in the Place Pigalle in Paris for many artists including Degas and his friend Édouard Manet.

As much as Degas disliked being classified an “impressionist”, L’absinthe is clearly Impressionistic in terms of it subject matter, brushstrokes and compositions.  Impressionism was a term that was used to describe an art movement during 1870s and 1880s in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France and it represented a new style of painting where a momentary impression is captured by the artist.  It is often marked by small, thin, visible brushstrokes, a bright palette, an emphasis on the changing quality of lights and an open, arbitrary-looking framing, with landscapes and scenes of urban life being the favourite motifs usually.  In L’absinthe Degas showed viewers a glimpse of the Parisian café.  The off-centre framing, the substantial foreground and the cropping of the man’s pipe at the edge all give the impression of a snapshot taken by an onlooker at a nearby table.  The presence of the shadow of the two people reflected in the mirror and use of the dark but harmoniously related tones of colour are also a resemblance of the painting to a photograph.  The short, thick strokes of paint that quickly captured the essence of the subject, rather than its details, are again clear indications that this painting is Impressionistic.  All these elements can be contrasted by his early work The Bellelli Family, a family portrait where all the figures are aligned horizontally with little emphasis on light and shadow, and where lines and surfaces are smooth and polished without a clear trace of the brushstrokes.

It was probable that due to the controversial subject matter, that a woman is drinking absinthe in public, L’absinthe was not well received by the critics when it was first exhibited.  It was criticised as “ugly and disgusting” and regarded as a setback to morality and degradation to the society.  Some English critics viewed it as a warning lesson against absinthe and the French in general.  The female model, Ellen Andrée, was described as “What a whore!” by a critic.  The liquor was later banned in France in 1915.

Edgar Degas

The Dance Class 

1873–1876

Oil on canvas

85x75cm

Nevertheless, despite the controversy L’absinthe remains an important piece of work by Degas in representing his artistic style.  Impressionistic and captivating, the painting is essentially a snapshot executed in paint.  Degas evidenced his mature style of photographic painting by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual viewpoints.  Similarly, in The Dance Class where a group of young female ballet dancers were portrayed having ballet class with a master, dancers’ bodies were cropped abruptly and the main subject’s position is off-centred.  

Edgar Degas

Musicians in the Orchestra

1872

Oil on canvas

49x69cm

In Musicians in the Orchestra, it is even more apparent that Degas has deliberately chosen a most unexpected viewpoint, i.e. from the orchestra pit, to observe the ballet dancers on stage, whose figures are again cropped by the edge of the painting.  These fascinating depictions of seemingly spontaneous scenes with their innovative compositions are all evidence of the influence that both Impressionism and photography had on Degas.   Given his profound interest in repeatedly applying photographic techniques in his paintings, it is only a natural consequence that Degas eventually took up photography in his later years.  His friends including Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and poet Stéphane Mallarmé became the subjects of his photographs.

Édouard Manet

The Plum

1872

Oil on canvas

74x50cm

Degas’s mature cinematic painting style can be demonstrated more evidently by contrasting L’absinthe with The Plum, a painting by Degas’s artist friend Édouard Manet.   The same actress who posed for L’absinthe is depicted in The Plum similarly as a lonely, melancholic woman sitting in a Parisian café with a plum soaked in brandy before her on the table, staring ahead blankly.  Unlike in L’absinthe, the woman is positioned in the centre of the painting and there is no abrupt cropping at the edge.  Whilst it still resembles a snapshot, its cinematic effect is not as strong and dramatic as it is in L’absinthe.

Through his photographic paintings Degas has introduced a revolutionary idea in craving the reality and giving the impression of a spontaneous event.  Unlike his predecessors, Degas portrayed parts of a person using unconventional composition making paintings appear like snapshots, letting viewers imagine and wonder what is beyond the canvas.  Even though his paintings depict spontaneous moments, for Degas, it is through careful calculations and adjustments that such result is achieved.  Degas has once said that “no art could be less spontaneous than mine.  Inspiration, spontaneity, temperament are unknown to me.  One has to do the same subject ten times, even a hundred times over. In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement.”  In L’absinthe, whilst the painting is akin to a snapshot where it looks as if the painter is present in the café capturing the drinkers, the painting was actually completed in his studio where his friends were posing as the models.  By his deliberate use of photography techniques in painting, Degas has successfully portrayed an illusion of reality, an image so intriguing and captivating that anyone who has viewed it would find it difficult to forget.