Museum Of Art

The portrayal and the representation of the Chicano Art Movements are entrenched by the Mexican-American artist who institute artistic personalities and identities in the United States. The plenteous amount of the artist is massively influenced by the immense Chicano Movement (El Movimiento) which, was established in the 1960’s. The influence of Chicano Art was due to the Mexican- Revolution philosophy, art of Pre-Columbia and indubitably European techniques of painting, cultural, social, political issues. The movement took a stand to fight against stereotypes of Mexican- Americans conducive and to resist typical social norms. The movement to concentrate on awareness of collective history, equal opportunity, grants and social mobility. Chicanos have used the movement in pursuit of expressing their cultural values. Ever since it first appeared in America the art of Chicanos has matured to illustrate common struggle and social issues in conjunction with uniting the youth of the Chicano people to their culture and history. Chicano Art is not only Mexican- American artwork; it further emphasizes and accentuates the histories of the Chicano people in a superb and sublime way of American art.

As I was looking through the never-ending list of artists on the PBS program “Art21,” there was only one name that really captured my attention. That name was Marela Zacarías. I think one of the main reasons as to why I was so intrigued to click on this artist was because her name sounded Spanish and being Hispanic has always been something I have been proud of. What made my choice even better was when I selected on Marela Zacarías’s name and began reading I found out she was Mexican just like me. At that point, there was no doubt I was going to do this assignment based off one of her artworks. When I began researching Zacarías and her art, I was hoping to love her work. Not only did I end up enjoying most of her art but ended up loving the piece called Mannahatta. Without a doubt, it became one of my favorite sculptures right away.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond at a glance is a modern metropolitan building that displays a vibrant exhibition of Byzantine art found in the Medieval and Byzantine wing. They are grouped together because they share a progression of time occurring in the heart of Europe roughly from the 1300s until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The exhibit begins with displays of medieval art of Western Europe. It further progresses to Byzantine art arranged in broad categories ranging from pre-Christian art, liturgical material, secular material and a display of coptic textiles. Although small scale, a few art pieces prominently featuring the human figure stood out in particular.

On November 7, 1883, an exhibition organized by “May Wright Sewell, her husband Theodore, and a small group of art-minded citizens” (History, 2017) began what would one day become the establishment now known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Since that first exhibition, the IMA has gone through several identity changes. They were first named, the Art Association of Indianapolis. Their next identity was as the John Herron Art Institute, which opened a whole new chapter, as they became “a campus featuring both a museum and an art school.” (History, 2017) Today, the IMA is one of the largest encyclopedic art museums in the nation. The IMA has had various leadership and staff over the years that have lent to how the museum operates today.

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) holds many works of art from all types of cultures from around the world. The Torso of an Emperor in the Guise of Jupiter from Roman culture and the Torso of Aphrodite from Greek culture, are but two of them. It is unknown who the artist was for either of them, but the work has lived on for centuries. During the time period the gods were known for their perfection- like body and extraordinary looks. Since the sculptures highlight only the torso of the body it represents that only image matters and the brain does not.

As Edgar Degas once said, “ Art is not what you see, but what others make you see”. The St. Louis Art Museum is a place for artist to display their art and give spectators the option to see art from a new perspective. This was the case for me. As we walked up to the beautifully structured building that stood so tall and wide, my expectations were extremely high. At first glance I notice the bronze statue of King Louis IX of France riding high on his horse. From this statue alone, my expectations of the art museum grew stronger. I have never been to an art museum before, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect. My first expectation was to see huge detailed sculptures right as I walked through the door. That expectation didn’t come true.

For this project, I chose the Tampa Museum of Art. My daughter Annabelle, who is eleven, accompanied me. She is an aspiring young artist who loves to paint and assemble collages. This paper will describe our trip, the museum’s activities, and what was on exhibit. After which, I will choose two works of art and preform an analysis on them. I will employ the formal elements and the principles of design to engage the first piece, “The Great Journey”. With my second choice “A Group of Cubans who left Manzanillo are Rescued at Sea”, I will discuss how applying an alternative contextual analysis would help in understanding the meaning behind the painting more.

Among the many artworks I have seen, I decided to discuss about the “Sarcophagus Depicting a Battle between Soldiers and Amazons (Warrior Women)” from the Roman civilization. It was built sometime in between 140 A.D. to 170 A.D and is approximately forty and a half inches in length, ninety-one and a half inches in width, and fifty and a half inches tall in height (“Roman Sarcophagus”). This masterpiece appealed to me because of the unique approach that has been designed to honor the deceased. Many people are familiar with the formatting and inscriptions of a gravestone because it is usually engraved with an individual’s full name, birth date, and death date. During the Roman Empire, a sarcophagus, which is a coffin, was widely used to show decorative themes that includes: battle scenes, hunting scenes, weddings, or other memorable episodes from the life of the deceased individual. The most luxurious ones were made from marble surrounded by symbolic sculptures, figures and inscriptions on all four sides (“Sarcophagus”). Another feature that captured my attention was the large quantity of details used to bring out a lifelike aspect of the deceased individual’s favorable moments in their life. In this artwork, this sarcophagus was dedicated to a Roman commander. The exterior of the sarcophagus has been well-decorated and carved with exquisite details depicting a battle scene

As a placebo for a changing guard, La Virgen de Guadalupe proved highly successful. The iconic image of La Virgen de Guadalupe remains static in both form and symbolism until the mid twentieth century, when a new movement among Mexican-Americans emerges in California, dubbed the Chicano movement. As visual propaganda becomes a large part of the movement, a significant body of art with common themes and styles, known as Chicano art, follows. This shift in subject matter among Mexican-American artists toward a specific social and political agenda began earlier, as evidenced by the work of Rivera, Orozco, and Posada, but, it isn’t until the mid 1960’s that national or religious iconographic images are recycled to support a larger political or social agenda.

Without a doubt, The Hispanic Society of America is a museum where the artwork does not show Hispanic people fighting, but instead, it shows a healthy image. A visitor of the museum said, in a 2016 article that “one feels transported to another time and another place.” This shows that when you are in the museum, you can concentrate, and feel peaceful. You can feel what the paintings are trying to communicate in the most comfortable way possible.

The idea of the Chicano community muralism as a requirement for the “art of place” shows that the practice is specific to an area. Even though they are understood in the context of the history of a location, they rarely remain to be a still symbol of a certain moment or a place in the record of events from the past.

It shows the struggle and emotions of the Chicanos. Some of the murals like the mural of Mexican history and an unknown really shows all the aspect of their history. It shows the natives, women, men, revolutionaries and the major figures in Mexican history. The home page shows a drawing that represents the mixture of race which makes up the Chicano identity, the Native, Spaniard, and mestizo. This is a very visual history and one can pick some of the emotions and struggle through the paintings but one needs to understand the written history in order to appreciate it better because it makes it easier to identify especially with the major figures. Michelle Rosado makes an interesting point about the murals in the Chicano web site, when she mentions that "one may think that this is the history of all Mexican-Americans, but it is not. The effect of certain events that occurred in Mexican-American history on this community and California, such as the Chicano Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Moratorium march against the Vietnam war, is addressed. The major outcome of these events emphasized by the web site is the influence it had on art in the Mexican-American culture. However, the history and other effects on all Mexican-Americans throughout the United states is not discussed". I agre with Michelle Rosado that "similar to the web site it [the documentary] does not talk about the very beggining of the Mexican-American

The murals depicted what we have been talking in class since the beginning of the first week. They were just a graphic representation of the struggle of the Chicano Movement and the Chicana Feminism. The painting on the wall showed that the Chicano History was more that a simple fact it was alive and it is still alive. I think that all the painting there was an expression of what Moraga call re-membering. Even though, I am not part of the chicano community, throughout those painting, I feel like I was re-membering the struggle that they faced at this time. I understood where the story started from and where it is going.

In the mission district, I saw a really impressive picture that is not related to Cinco de Myo but I want to write about it. The painting is drawn all over the wall. The name of the building is “Women’s Building.” I have never seen such a huge wall painting. The painting is a collaboration of seven women’s artists. It is drawn women who were active in the 20th century. The building will have been protecting diverse

Bright colors jumping at you asking for attention, images so real viewers can not tell the difference. These are the thoughts that came to my head as I gazed at two works of art by two Mexican artists at MoLAA museum of art . I visited two museums, Bowers Museum of cultural Art in the heart of Southern California and the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach for my report unfortunately I only liked the works in MoLAA and will talk about it through out my paper. I will talk about two Mexican artists Rafael Cauduro and David Alfaro Siqueros that caught my eye, and made me want to learn more of them and their approach to art. Siqueiros caught my eye and interest because according to his biography “no