娱乐英语新闻:Bold or boring? - impression of Bob Dylan's new exhibition

"Bahia," for instance, depicts an inky-blue night sky and dimly lit and teetering houses. The eyes are led up a narrow street to an imposing, softly lit church sitting on the horizon.

Balancing it are three small figures standing in the foreground: an old man leaning on a stick, a street sweeper, and a curvaceous prostitute. She seems to be soliciting a client who has just driven up in an expensive car. The men look bored.

Critics of Dylan's paintings also seem a little bored.

"Bob's Brazil does not interest me," wrote art critic Torben Sangild, in the left-leaning Politiken newspaper. "He has only momentarily aroused my curiosity during this otherwise well-curated exhibition."

He believes the style is "traditional" and "mediocre," drawing on techniques invented nearly a century ago.

Weirup is more generous, saying "(Dylan) clearly has studied the great masters. And learned from them." Yet, he feels "Bob Dylan is a genius as a poet and musician. Not as a painter. And the only reason to exhibit him in a museum is that he is Bob Dylan."

Impressed by Dylan's first exhibition of watercolor paintings in Germany in 2007, Denmark's National Gallery invited Dylan to exhibit in Copenhagen.

Karsten Ohrt, the gallery's director, says the exhibition is "adding to the fact that we're getting a very well known poet and musician to the museum, but also a very remarkable visual artist."