Men Insulting Nature

In art, there are qualities that speak louder than words. It expresses many different messages and emotions and each person has an experience different from the next. In this paper, I will be discussing two artworks I encountered. The piece is a good example of how people can encounter different experiences in one piece. I attended the Orlando Museum of Art a while back with family and overall enjoyed my experience. On my visit, I found the museum quite impressive and felt a deep connection with specific pieces.

[1] Which the show is an emerging of the idea Post minimalism. Where customary abstract painting at the time primarily explores certain issues or artist’s personal sensation in abstract manner, like Wassily Kandinsky’s painting, eccentric abstraction emphasise on the matter itself, materials, process of making, associations of organic qualities, colour, shape and sensuous experiences. [1]

Oh, hello, you must be my 8:00. I didn’t see you there, even though we’re in a confined room with only one entrance and exit, well I suppose there is that door over there--nevermind that’s beside the point. Welcome to the Museum of Art! On behalf of the museum and myself we’d like to thank you for donating to the museum, and as a reward we’d like to give you a sneak peak into our latest exhibition! A burning question that has at least at one point been on everyone’s mind. A question almost equivalent to, “What is Life?” Today we ask, What is Art? Come with me, and let’s find out.

Art is able to evoke different feelings and emotions to each person that sets their eyes on it. The act of ‘looking’ is simple, but a lot comes from it. Where the eyes are first drawn to, the duration that the eyes are focused on a specific detail, and the thoughts that flood one’s brain when viewing art is all significant. These actions say more than the piece itself, it reveals emotions of both the artist and the audience. Art can be expressed through infinite forms, but the underlying importance is not with the art itself. It represents a place in time, displaying what was noteworthy to an individual in their own life. It serves as a lasting creation representative of human imagination with the ability to bring out a multitude of emotions from whoever views it. When art is created it represents the creativity of the human mind compacted into a physical object. Art has little usage aside from pure observation, yet it has prevailed throughout time, showing its importance to humanity. Art provides a lens into humanity, showcasing the human ability over time. When studied through history, art is a view into the development of humans and their interests. Through something as basic as commonly using symmetry to transitioning to asymmetry, the European’s perspective following the Renaissance is revealed. The making of art is solely up to one individual and their creativity. It is the pinnacle of

Last Sunday, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts and walked through the marble corridors in pursuit of Percy’s “it.” I was accompanied by a friend who was in pursuit of taking candid photos. I came in with a set of expectations as Percy writes, “the sightseer measures his satisfaction by the degree to which the [museum] conforms to the preformed complex” (473). When I entered the museum, the quietude of the atmosphere caused me to become drowsy and I quickly looked for the café to drink coffee. Feeling energized, I wandered aimlessly for close to an hour, amazed by the museum’s architecture and rustic paintings displayed. However, being surrounded by great artistic pieces of history, I did not gain the sense of being enriched or enlightened. Due to the nature of the assignment, I was not nearly as interested and felt that I could have been lost in the moment if I had entered on my own free will. That was until I stumbled upon the “Showdown! Kuniyoshi vs. Kunisada” art

The piece was trying to convey the idea of freedom. Liberating the soul by expressing what it feels in a form of dance, which is something that can be seen. The movements were free, the performers moved around the stage depicting natural dance movements.

When visiting an exhibition of art work by artists was organized by Winston Salem State University at the Diggs Gallery. When I reached, the Art Gallery, it packed with students of the university. Clusters of people were inflowing the exhibition halls, their faces were pleased with joy. On the walls, pencil drawings and Jet Magazines were up for presentation. Most of them replicate daily activities and some of them brought us into a world of imagination of how life was in the past. As I sauntered through the exhibition halls, I heard the voice of a public speaker who was telling the guests about the artists and their works. The exhibition offered me precious minutes of moderation and enriched my mind. It brought me back into my pleased and peaceful past.

This leads us to The Connoisseur, an oil painting on canvas completed in 1961. That year, Rockwell ambitiously challenged himself to approach the canvas like Jackson Pollack (1912-1956). By laying the canvas on the floor, his studio was temporarily transformed into an abstract expressionist's workshop. Rockwell was captivated by the idea of portraying the relationship between conventional and modern art, juxtaposing his own style alongside a work of nonrepresentational art. Standing with his back to us, Rockwell allows the viewer to decide for themselves what they think the museum visitor’s reaction is to this Pollack-like painting, and indirectly so, what their own opinion is.

In beginning was the image. Before each of us learned to speak and speak on a topic, we started see and perceive the world through images. We tried to analyze what the world has to pass us. The same is true now, when as adults we choose, for example, to an art gallery. Looking at the work of art, at first glance, we can very quickly determine if that something we like or not, whether evokes in us an emotion. The model can also be in terms face or frontally, in profile or three-quarters, as shown in the image of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Head of the Virgin.

As exhibitions do not represent a neutral position on a subject matter then the opinion and the process by which this opinion was formed should be defined and made transparent to the viewer. Our understanding of art is for the most part prescribed, Ferguson states “the ways in which art is talked about, understood and debated are largely determined through the medium of exhibitions” (Greenberg, Reesa, Bruce W. Ferguson, and Sandy Nairne 1996, pg.180). As exhibitions seek to benefit and promote the desires and values from within this “network of interests” then we as viewers are simply told how to understand art, what is valuable and what is to be discarded. The way in which we come to understand art is laid out for us, with little room to draw our own conclusions.

In our daily life, we are constantly bombarded with imagery, navigating through the chaos of, web pages, textbooks, etc. These images are being infinitely reproduced and distributed, passing through our perceptual filters to either be kept indefinitely in our memory or to be ignored entirely. This summer, Miami-born artist Chason Matthams works with Thierry Goldberg to put on his first New York solo show, ‘Advances, None Miraculous’, exploring the idea of delving further into the chaos to create non-linear narratives, making comparisons that might otherwise be ignored.

Professor Mondloch first briefly discussed the concept of interface in the context of art. She argues that the way we see and experience art works “is as important as what we see.” To illustrate her argument, Professor Mondloch used Bruce Nauman’s Live-Taped Video Corridor as an example of how our experiences of an art work can become its meaning.

Curving figurative contour lines fill the center of the canvas with movement. Two idealized figures are seen in the center of the piece engaging on a classic roman lectus. The figures are emphasized in front of a clouded, white, ornate entablature

The first thing I noticed at the Huntington Museum of Art was how quiet and empty it was. This was not displeasing however--quite the opposite in fact. The atmosphere was perfect for contemplation and thought, which is exactly what I want in a museum. I was still surprised of course; my visit to the Art Institute of Chicago had been very different. Unlike in Huntington, Chicago’s museum was packed to the brim, and the people within it practically shouting just to be heard. It is very easy to decide which one I liked more, in terms of surroundings anyway. As I walked along, my footsteps echoing, I could not help but feel like there was something missing. The art was perfectly fine, but there was a lack of liveliness to the place, something that Chicago had in spades. I remember noticing that the art only had names, and no descriptions. This was something I disliked extremely. It is nice to look at images I suppose, but I want some history. I want the time period, and a description of the artist, two things that play a huge role in what a painting is actually about. I felt like I should just naturally understand what each piece of art was trying to describe to me, which was an irritating feeling.

Positioned alongside Central Park within the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museums, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within a museum. By analyzing two separate works on exhibit at the Met, I will pose the argument that museums offer a unique expression of a world view that is dictated through every element of its construction.