Menil Collection Analysis

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.

One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.

The museum I chose to visit was the Dali Museum mainly because I have been wanting to check it out since I first moved down here to Florida three years ago. My sister has always been a huge Salvador Dali fan and even has a tattoo of his painting titled “The Elephants” on her side. I am looking forward to experiencing more of his paintings other than his most popular works of art. I am also hoping this experience will give me a greater appreciation for him as an artist by seeing the diversity of his works. What I am least looking forward to is trying to find one work of art that really stands out to me enough to write this paper about. I am sure I am going to find multiple pieces of art that I will love.

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

I also chose the first piece because of the almost off-putting gaze of the woman in the audience towards the viewer – I wanted to describe the expression she had, and the expression of the performer looking down at her. I chose the second piece, Fog over San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, California by artist Sandow Birk, because of the use of light in the painting, and because of the subject matter – the beautiful scenery of the Bay, with a highly populated prison almost just out of sight behind the fog. I felt that this was a good example of atmospheric perspective and wanted to expand my understanding of it by studying it. The pieces both relied on light techniques to make up the composition; Shinn’s work heavily utilized chiaroscuro, and Birk’s artwork relied on atmospheric perspective. In contrast with my last formal analysis, liked both paintings I decided to write about – I did this intentionally because I wanted to expand my formal analysis skills by writing about pieces I felt an emotional connection to, to see if I could ignore my feelings and concentrate on just the content. This time around, I felt like I had taken enough notes, and I wasn’t straining my memory to recall major details about the painting, however,

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination”; which always has been throughout the years. Art has been separated in different categories such as architectures, sculptures, photography and paintings. For my semester project, which was to visit an art or historic museum; my classmates and I went to the Reynolda House Museum of American art which provided us both the art and history. At first, we all assume that the visit would be boring or the art gallery would be dull. What shocked us the most was the actual experience being in the museum instead of just talking about it. We experienced multiple feelings during our visit in the art gallery as well as the historic area. From the art gallery which held many paintings of artist, to the house that R.J Reynolds and his family once occupied. Furthermore, it also showed us the legacy of R.J Reynolds and his family has left behind for the people of Winston-Salem.

Late on Wednesday night, my phone ringed. It was a text message from my friend Pedro, “Do you want to visit an art museum tomorrow”. Knowing I needed to go, I texted him back quickly, “pick me up after your class tomorrow and we can adventure to The Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro”. After Pedro’s class, we explored the museum observing multiple art works, and I was invoked by three, art pieces. All three were different and intriguing in their own way. For instance, the painting that is on top of the cover page with all the wavy hair was painted by Catherine Murphy and is known as the “Frosted”. This painting was very delightful because of its unique elements. Second, the sculpture in the middle of the cover page is an image of a wooded animal. This sculpture was crafted by Deborah Butterfield and is recognized as Lunalilo. Also, at the bottom of the cover page is a sculpture constructed by Dan Graham, the sculpture was known as Triangle Solid with

17. On my museum experience, I took it in like every other visit to the museum I have ever had: much like other children expressed wonder and amazement at a circus performance or sports game; I was awestruck and mesmerized by the colors, the atmosphere, and the same restrained joy that I felt evident in the eyes of all the other observers. My girlfriend and I made our way through the museum, blending in with crowds of other viewers to see Cezanne, Gauguin, Brueghel, O’Keefe and the like in the permanent collection, making time to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. But my heart has always had a soft spot for

For this reason, I really enjoyed Women Seated on Sofa in Interior. This oil canvas caused me to have to look at each specific detail and as well as the portrait as a whole in order to be able to interpret it. When I toured the St. Louis Art Museum I didn’t realize that they had renovated the building and made room for so many more pieces of art. I would highly recommend going because there are variety new and old of pieces that are very

The two works of art that I have chosen to analyze are 1) Jordan Casteel. Miles and JoJo. 2014. Oil on canvas, 54” x 72” and 2) Aaron Fowler. He Was. 2015. Mixed media, 134” x 165” x 108”. The themes that these works of art represent in regards to the exhibit are love, family, and pain. However, they also fall into other thematic categories. The main theme that seems to apply to both “Miles and JoJo” and “He Was” is Human Experience. Additionally, these arts differ in some ways.

Intrinsically intriguing as the artworks and themes are for many viewers, what lies with greater uniqueness is the visual context of art, as emphasized by Helena. Artworks, despite the era or time period, are always initially distinguished based on the surface; for example, what’s present and what’s going on. As I tour the Grohmann Museum with Helena, I was taught to look at the furthest distance in the portrait rather than the surface.

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.

Visit any major museum of art, at any given time, and one could find an abundance of monumental names listed on tiny plaques hanging next to even more recognizable works of art. The excitement felt by any art enthusiast when walking into these buildings of time and creation, is undeniable and especially unique. Could it be the atmosphere of the building, the presence of artwork, the people, possibly the grandeur of the space, or perhaps, could it be the spirit of the artists themselves, peering through the work they created?

After getting over my initial reluctance, I got butterflies in my stomach. This was only the 2nd time I’d been to an art museum, so I wanted to make the most of it. When we first arrived, we looked around at some paintings. I visited an exclusive temporary exhibit of Edvard Munch which included a surprising amount of paintings of naked women. Nothing caught my eye in the first few galleries, but then I stumbled on an exhibit called “In Character” by Nam June Paik. As soon as I walked in, I got embarrassingly excited. I constantly had to stop myself from running around the museum like a madman. All the TV sculptures and simple, childlike drawings had been just so incredible to me. The piece that I really enjoyed the most was a sculpture called “Self-Portrait.”

The area of art is popularly known for heightening emotions, challenging stereotypes, and ultimately providing insights into how individuals view the surrounding world. The artist and the observer time and time again see pieces in overwhelmingly different ways. Individuals may wonder why this is so. What could possibly create such a drastic change from one perspective to another? When it comes down to it, experiences are the answer. The artist and the observer have different