There are times when not smoking totally rules. Yes, there are. And then there are others, where you find yourself going awwwwww man. Just as a rewarding of yourself, a little show of appreciation – well done Anna, you've had a funny old day, and long, and you've got through it okay – it really does have its place. Only trouble is, when you're a week short of six months sans smoking (yes, a round of applause would work nicely round about here), the actuality of smoking no longer appeals. I mean, it has gone all smelly. And bad tasting. Fancy that.
I went to an exhibition today - a truly sizable array of paintings by the painter I consider Finland's finest to date, Helene Schjerfbeck. Many things of beauty and extraordinariness; but there's one thing I want to mention here (who knows why). Please look at this picture:
It is, as you likely saw immediately, a Madonna (in fact, this one is after El Greco – and I found it really touching, you know, that she (Schjerfbeck) had done several copies of El Greco's works that she never had the chance to see in real life, she did them from black and white books; especially when the museum had actually managed to get several of the originals (which she never saw, yes) to display next to her copies). Anyway, yes: a Madonna, this one; and what caught my mind was the fact that I could tell it was a madonna immediately when I set my eyes upon it from the other side of the room (I wasn't familiar with this picture before, although many of Schjerfbeck's paintings are extremely well-known to most Finns). There must be some culturally-shared image archetypes that one recognises, even if one has never seen a particular specimen of that archetype before.
I've no idea why I'm talking about this. My mum bought me two fridge magnets from the exhibition; I bought a postcard.
