Apocalypse 2 Essay

"Everyone is aware of the difficult and menacing situation in which human society - shrunk into one community with a common fate - finds itself, but only a few acts accordingly. Most people go on living their everyday life: half frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragicomedy this is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world. But on that stage, on which the actors under the floodlights play their ordained parts, our fate of tomorrow, life or death of the nations, is being decided. It would be different if the problem were not one of things made by man himself, such as the atomic bomb and other means of mass destruction equally

I drew inspiration from the creative indigenous cultures and the drama of the scenery. I painted many impressionist works of art during our travels. On our journey back we traveled through Santa Fe. On this journey I made contact with the artist community within the Museum of Mexico.

When the Atomic Bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, the people who experienced it were not expecting it to occur the way it did. We were given an insight of the lives of several characters on that fateful morning in August in 1945. Neighboring towns had all been bombarded by American B-29 raids, but so far Hiroshima had been spared and rumors spread that “something special” was in store for them. Every plane that flew overhead was a considered a threat and would set off the air raid warning, consequently that morning people even though the siren sounded earlier people were either going about their everyday routines or preparing for the worst. The people of Hiroshima were completely confused when the atomic bomb was dropped over their city because they were all expecting a warning of some kind, either from the U.S or the air-raid sirens but there was nothing heard before the bomb was dropped. Hersey describes it as a “noiseless flash,” which conjures the image of silence and a startlingly bright light as total buildings were decimated. With the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima, we ushered in a new age of

Three weeks ago I visited the Art Institute of Chicago. It was established in 1879 and has since expanded its collection to approximately three hundred thousand works. Attracting over one and a half million visitors annually, it is one of the largest art museums in the United States. The reason I chose this site is that I read that it displayed Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and I wanted to see it in person because it is so iconic.

Cauleen Smith is an artist who creates works of art that are based in the now, thus it is called Contemporary Art. She uses contemporary materials such as video recordings to create a narrative that evokes conversation. One such work is the film, which she created around the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. The work is called The Fullness of Time, and was created in 2008. She emphasizes the massive destruction that was caused by placing “herself” (in the from of an actress) in settings where the destruction was the most devastating, as well as demonstrating the severe isolation and vulnerability of human beings. See Figure 1 for a demonstration of how she visualized such vulnerability.

Though people questioned why acts of war were committed, they found justification in rationalizing that it served the greater good. As time evolved, the world began to evolve in its thinking and view of the atomic bomb and war. In Hiroshima, John Hersey has a conversation with a survivor of the atomic bomb about the general nature of war. “She had firsthand knowledge of the cruelty of the atomic bomb, but she felt that more notice should be given to the causes than to the instruments of total war.” (Hersey, 122). In John Hersey’s book, many concepts are discussed. The most important concept for the reader to identify was how society viewed the use of the bomb. Many people, including survivors, have chosen to look past the bomb itself, into the deeper issues the bomb represents. The same should apply to us. Since WWII, we have set up many restrictions, protocols and preventions in the hope that we could spare our society from total nuclear war. The world has benefited in our perspective of the bomb because we learned, understand, and fear the use of atomic weapons.

Uelsmann’s work was not well received in the photography community. His creations were not considered photography; however, he was well received in the art community. John Szarkowski hosted a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967. Uelsmann was considered “iconoclastic” and “set out to convince critics that photography offered alternatives to the conventional “purist” sensibility…” Uelsmann debated that photos could “evoke elusive states of feeling and thinking triggered by irrational and imaginative juxtaposition” (Kay). Uelsmann has succeeded in finding a following among photographers and artist alike. In the past forty years, Uelsmann’s work has been exhibited in over 100 solo shows throughout the US and overseas. He has permanent instillations in museums worldwide (Taylor). Uelsmann’s photos are now revered for their original technical form as well as their surreal matter (Johnson).

In her book, Cross utilizes imagery to depict the unruly nature and destruction of the April 27th tornadoes; and yet on one page a more inspiring picture is painted by her amazing use of Imagery. ”A single window somehow survived... The stained-glass window of Jesus, with outstretched arms..”(Cross, 76).Imagine the surprise of seeing that after the whole church collapsed. It gave a lot of people hope. Other uses of imagery are more not inspiring.

Although atomic bombs may be seen as a “ruthless annihilation of cities” (Leo Szilard, p. 5), they are also an effective means of war. The use of atomic bombs in war have both position and negative consequences however; Leo Szilard’s “A Petition to the President of the United States” is a successfully articulated article on why he felt atomic bombs should not be used against Japan. Leo Szilard effectively uses pathos and logos to support his position on atomic bombs to the President. He also successfully offers countermeasures that reinforce the negativity surrounding the use of these bombs. While people may disagree with Leo Szilard’s position, his use of pathos and logos makes it a successful article.

For this essay, I decided to analyze the art collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, more specifically in the Jerome LioMel Joss Gallery. The Jermone LioMel Gallery contains the arts works of Africa, and the Pacific Islands so I will be analyzing arts from the two areas from Papua New Guinea and Nigeria. These arts pieces are the Veranda posts (opo), and the ornament for a sacred flute.

On September 4, 2016, I visited the Matisse in His Time exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. This exhibit is home to a plethora of pieces by many different European artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. While it is focused on Matisse and his extensive works, containing more than 50 of his pieces, there are many portraits and sculptures by other influential artists from that time period including Renoir, Picasso, and Georges Braque. Three of the most appealing works that I encountered in this exhibit are Maurice de Vlaminck’s Portrait of Père Bouju, Pablo Picasso’s Reclining Woman on a Blue Divan, and Henri Matisse’s sculpture series Henriette I, Henriette II, and Henriette III.

There was also a sizable presence of lighting and color and the way it was used in the film—especially darkness. Repeatedly, in Apocalypse Now the slaughter scene was in darkness which was then accompanied by a bright light further out. This helped illustrate the continuous seeking of power or greater goal. Once they reach their destination the lighting is extremely bright. The dark/light contrast is heightened when Willard reaches Kurtz’s compound.

The de Young museum seen from a distance is a bold architectural statement, with its sleek horizontal building, indeterminate dark brown color and its massive tower emerging from its slightly bent curving roof. The building is an example of boldness, internationalism and cultural neutrality. Its setting in the Golden Gate Park’s landscape with the topography, vegetation; weather and light are taken advantage of. The significance of nature and the art that is housed in the museum from the Americas, Oceania, and Africa can be seen as having resonance in the architecture. Many of the works of art are sacred in their cultures, are made of natural materials and were never intended to be displayed in formal settings. Post modern theme of ‘context’ comes into expression as Jacques Herzog put it: “These objects belong to nature. We wanted to emphasize that”.

In the movie “Apocalypse Now,” which is a very unique and special movie. Many people still wonder why this movie is so popular and special in 1979. Which took me awhile to understand, because the quality of the movie like photography and sounds is not as good as it could be, also one thing that bothered me is the fogginess, they kept adding to the background, which it didn’t feel natural and shouldn’t be in the movie. However, let’s not forget when this film was released which is 1979 and if you compare any movies with Apocalypse Now, well you couldn’t compare them. Like I was watching some movie scenes that was made from the 1970’s and they were not near as good, and looked so fake and very unprofessional overall. But Apocalypse

I went to The Art Institute of Chicago on a Thursday when it was free for Illinois resident and when there were different exhibitions going on. There was long line at the entrance near the museum at 6pm in the evening. I went alone because I thought I can have better focus on picking a good art work. I was ready to go through all the magnificent paintings for my art museum paper. As I walked through the museum, there were colorful Indian Modern art exhibited for the occasion. They were big and vibrant. The was also a special exhibition of Tarsila Do Amaral, one of the leading Latin American Modernist artist who paint like Cubism, Futurism and expressionism. Her artworks were childlike in terms of the painting style of objects and people. I was most fond of the modernist and contemporary part of the gallery with painters like Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon. I was fascinated with Salvador Dali’s Venus de Milo with Drawers. The drawers unnaturalistically located on a human body was intriguing. The depth of the human mind and subconsciousness are creatively represented by these drawers on Venus de Milo. Francis bacon’s work Figure with meat was not bad either. Figure with Meat is a disturbing depiction of Pope Innocent X sat in front of a cow carcass cut lengthways in half. (Gould) Like his other painting, the theme is dark and twisted. The carcass is included serve as a direct reminder that death will be at the end await