... to write a new post to welcome the year.
I started the year watching a documentary on John Steinbeck. The documentary featured Melvyn Bragg in America, talking to people about the enduring legacy of Steinbeck and visiting the places featured in several of his works. One work featured in the documentary that caught my interest was The log from the Sea of Cortez. It's a book I've never heard of before, and it's about Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts's expedition to the Sea of Cortez in California. As someone who spends days away from home doing fieldwork, I was inspired to also chronicle the environments of the places I visit. Doing so will allow me to discover new things about places and give me a better understanding of the people inhabiting them.
Another documentary I saw this month was about Renoir. I didn't know much about him before watching the documentary, and it was nice that it presented a detailed story of his life and works. What I got from the documentary was this renewed interest in learning about Paris' urban planning. Renoir lived when Paris was undergoing major changes in its city design, which influenced the subject and themes in many of his works. He was able to bridge the past and the present by taking inspiration from the works of those who came before him to make artworks that reflected the realities of his time.
Out of all the artworks featured in the documentary, I like those that featured groups of people doing everyday things. Pont Neuf reminds me of what it's like to live in the city with all the noise and the constant movement of the people.
Speaking of city life, the Renoir documentary inspired me to try the works of Emile Zola, whose 20-novel work Les Rougon-Macquart features stories exploring life in Paris of people from different social classes. The novel I want to read from the series is The Ladies' Paradise, which is set in a department store. The idea sounds cool, tbh. Mannequin (1987) is the only work I know that's set in a department store, so this girl is interested in exploring more department stores. Also, as someone exposed to department stores and malls, I'm interested to see what makes their 19th-century bastions of consumerism different from the ones we have today.