Analysis : The Aesthetic And Science Behind Sunsets

Vibrant hues of orange and yellow were smeared together and they played with violent shades of red. The rising sun rested in a bed of golden rose, cotton clouds. Its rays of light spilling over the hills like pale orange paint. At least, that's what I imagined this sunrise would look like in a world without skyscrapers and other assorted buildings suffocating the horizon, sucking the life out of the beauty that nature gives us, and replacing it with smoke, oil, and the stench of our ever growing need to expand. Our need, humanity's need to leave no blade of grass behind, to cover every inch of the earth with pollution and man made roads and structures, is what is destroying the beauty that nature provides.

Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.

Sunsets are the most beautiful, magical, mesmerizing phenomenon that occurs every day. Sunsets never miss a beat and always put on such a wonderful show to whoever stops to appreciate it. I'm sure everyone has the same question, where do sunsets come from? who makes the vibrant colors of pink, purple, deep orange, and different shades of red?

“For the first time on the expedition the vista was primarily sky rather than earth. Herds of puffy cumulus raced beneath the sun, imprinting the landscape with a shifting matrix of shadow and blinding light.”

Author Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History, depicts the events of three ethnic communities that led to the demise of Apaches within the Arizona territory. Karl Jacoby's Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the violence of History, explores the events leading up to the death of 140 Apaches encamped at Aravaipa. This event which took place near a U.S. military base known as Grant Camp shed light to the justified actions of grouped communities versus the Apaches. The accused groups of Anglo-American, Mexican American, and Tohono O'odham took part in a brutal massacre that would later be acquitted of any wrongdoing. The efforts of the federal government were not enough to aid or bring justice towards the Apaches. Author Jacoby has pieced together the geographical networks which sparked a chronological list of minor and major conflicts between the other ethnic communities and the Apaches. The Author's purpose of Shadows at Dawn is to highlight the injustice through oral histories, primary sourced documents, and various perspectives that factored in Apache existence.

Lewis Grassic Gibbons Sunset Song contains two characters, Chris and Ewan, whose relationship deteriorates throughout the novel. The writer shows this deterioration through the various techniques that he employs. Choose a novel in which the relationship between two characters deteriorates. Explain the reasons for this and while assessing the part each character plays in the deterioration. Make it clear where your sympathies lie.

The horrible accounts of the holocaust are vividly captured by Elie Wiesel in Night, an award winning work by a Holocaust survivor. It describes his time in the Holocaust and helps the reader fully understand the pain he went through. In the text, Elie continuously mentions how he is losing his faith to god. It is evident that he has nearly, if not completely lost his faith during the events of the holocaust. In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel’s faith changes because of the absence of God, the dehumanization of the prisoners, and all of the death that surrounds him.

William J. Long wrote in his book Outlines of English and American Literature, a book divulging the (then) modern literature of the late 1800s and early 1900s, that Edith Wharton’s works were “a little snobbish: she deals with ‘society,’ and confines herself to that corner of society which complacently regards itself as best. In consequence, there are no wide horizons in her books, which are distinctly of the indoor variety” (Long 570). He also stated that “every novel is marred (or improved, as some think) by analytical details that seldom repay a reader for the lack of action.” (Long 570) The criticisms raised by Long are fallacious, and it’s proved by Wharton’s poem “An Autumn Sunset,” written in 1895. Universality, the daily grind, and the human experience were major facets of American Realism, and, in contrast to Long’s criticisms, were shown in “An Autumn Summer” through its focus on war, its imagery of a commonplace setting, and its melancholic tone.

A beautiful sunset could signify a positive outcome for the race. However, at this point the reader Next, the author connects

One of the major themes of Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun is the socioeconomic fall of aristocracy in Japan following World War II. The title itself reflects these core themes: when the Japanese write down the name of their home country in Kanji (one of its three alphabets), it  roughly means “land of the rising sun”. The Setting Sun is an allegory that the glory days of Japan have come to an end, specifically their ancient aristocracy and their old families, as well as Japanese culture. The comfortable bourgeoisie becomes the hard-working proletariat and the historical situation changes as the material circumstances changes. This social and economic change is both subtly and unsubtly shown through the main characters’ flashbacks and stories; Kazuko and her family come from a long line of aristocrats but now face the reality of living without power or status. Following three major events -- the death of Kazuko’s father, Kazuko’s divorce to her wealthy husband, and the nation-wide economic crisis caused by the war -- the family finds themselves out of money and out of luck, challenging the way they formerly viewed the world, themselves, and their class. Through their mother’s incompetence, Kazuko’s difficulty in working, and Naoji’s existential crises, Dazai deconstructs the classist ideals that claim the wealthy gained their status and capital because of hard work, strength, intelligence, and personal superiority while remaining sympathetic toward the upper classes.

Magnificent, heavenly light filters through the wispy clouds, signifying a new day. The thin clouds slowly drift apart, presenting a beautiful sky beneath. Speaking out to me, the sky seems to know every one of my thoughts, my dreams, my darkest fears. The sky is but a canvas of light, creating a new picture within seconds. Weaving a story through the delicate clouds, the picture grows beyond the expanse of sky. The colors splay before me, painfully beautiful and simple. Pink hues morph into vibrant purples as they blend with the beautiful blues. The glittering stretch of sea shines before my eyes. With every new wave, the light from above whispers promises of riches and sparkling diamonds. The light breeze that kisses the sea sends the twinkling light back into the air above.

The first work that I am evaluating is "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh which was created in June 1889 and is currently located at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “The Starry Night” was painted during the post-impressionist period, and is one of several that Van Gogh produced while staying at the asylum in Saint-Remy in southern France. According to Soomo Learning (2017) the piece is "a vision of dynamic spiritual movement from temporality to eternity" (Section 2.4.2 Art Gallery). The painting depicts an imagined view of the town of Saint-Remy, with a Dutch style church at the center and rolling hills in the background. It appears to be just before dawn with bright stars, Venus, and the moon set in a vivid blue swirling sky. Contrasting the bright stars and brilliant blue sky is a dark looming cypress tree that occupies the left side of the image and contains a flamelike appearance.

One of Vincent Van Gogh’s most world renowned paintings is his landscape oil painting Starry Night. The painting displays a small town underneath an unusual yet still extremely beautiful night sky. In this night sky, Van Gogh utilizes an array of colors that blend well together in order to enhance the sky as a whole. The town is clearly a small one due to the amount of buildings that are present in the painting itself. In this small town most of the buildings have lights on which symbolize life in a community. Another visual in Starry Night is the mountain like figures that appear in the background of the illustrious painting. Several things contribute to the beauty of Van Gogh’s painting which are the painting’s function, context, style, and design. Van Gogh’s utilization of these elements help bring further emphasis to his work in Starry Night.

Vincent Van Gogh is a well-known artist to people because of one of his paintings, The Starry Night. Van Gogh has painted many other pieces during his lifetime including one that is currently on display at the Minnesota Institute of Art, Olive Trees. This painting is part of a series of olive tree paintings consisting of a total 18 pieces of art. The one at the Minnesota Institute of Art was painted November of 1889 and is known as “Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun”. Through a contextual analysis of this piece a lot can be discovered about its meaning. When this piece is compared to other artwork by Van Gogh even more fascinating details emerge about this piece of art.

The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.