I escaped...

...into the normal world today, albeit for a few hours. I bought a season ticket to Rubens: The Making of an Artist at the National Gallery today and enjoyed for a few hours the company of what I think is one of the greatest painters of all time.It felt strangely alien, being in this totally different world, not at all connected with confidence intervals, NPV's or Porter's Five Forces. None of the usual familiar faces, just me and Peter-Paul (and the other visitors to the exhibition). And it was heaven. I love the way Rubens paints every single muscle in a body, the vivid colors he uses (love his red especially) and he is in my view the all-time winner of the number one prize in the dead-body-painting contest. The exhibition is set up to track Rubens' skills as a painter in the first 15 years of his career and I think the Gallery did a marvelous job bringing the paintings together and showing the progress he made as an artist.
Being in this wholly unconnected world (although Rubens was also a shrewd businessman and a one-time diplomat) made me see clearer what goes on in my MBA world, and gave me some much needed perspective. It's so easy getting caught up in this whole MBA-thing and I guess although I knew that going in, it didn't prevent me from getting caught up in it anyway.

For reviews of the exhibition, read this article in the Times, or this one, a review in the Guardian and this one in the Guardian by Simon Schama.