West Of The Imagination: Book Review

In Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War, the haunting image “Harvest of Death” catches one’s eye with the seemingly endless field of corpses. The jarring facial expression on the figure in the foreground draws one into the narrative of the piece. However, our initial understanding of the image’s narrative is limited to what we can see and what we know of the circumstances surrounding it. While we know it was taken during the American Civil War, by simply looking at the photograph, we cannot know who is depicted. In black and white, it is difficult to even tell what side of the conflict these fallen soldiers fought for. We can interpret the image for our own readings, but we cannot tell what the artist intended us to see or what message he wanted to impart with it. These unknowns, however, are addressed in the related text associated with the image. These short passages can tell us a great deal about the photographer’s intentions and influence the way we read the image. Through the excerpt, we not only learn the intended meaning of the photography, but we also learn about Gardner’s political intentions and the key points he wanted his viewers to note within the image. Published as a pair, Gardner used his text to contextualize his images and inform the way we perceive them. This is clearly illustrated in “A Harvest of Death” and its accompanying passage.

On Saturday, November 4th, I visited the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado. The piece of art I decided to write about is called “A Mountain Symphony (Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado)” This two-dimensional oil on canvas painting was completed in America in 1927 by Sven Birger Sandzén. This painting has not been on public view since 1927 and is located in the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado. It was a “Free Day” at the museum, so I decided to attend by myself. I was unable to get a picture of myself in front of the work of art I decided to write about, but I did get several pictures of the artwork and a picture of myself with the “Free Day” sticker. I decided to write about this work of art because it was the only piece in the museum that really stood out to me and really caught my attention. A Mountain Symphony is a lively, beautiful landscape painting with a vibrant pallet filled with luminosity and broad brushstrokes. The sculptural quality of the paint surface reflect the influence of turn-of-the century modernist techniques. The balance of color and light brings happiness and joy to the viewer.

The St. Louis Art Museum has many intriguing pieces of artwork, but my eyes seemed to navigate towards Thomas Cole’s pieces. Research has shown that Thomas Cole was best known for his landscape art, but through the portal of America’s wilderness and it’s association of God. Nature, human life, and mortality were the key viewpoints

Mary Catherine Bateson's Improvisation In a Persian Garden, Annie Dillard's Seeing and Leslie Marmon Silko's Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination

Emily Carr is one of the most recognizable and celebrated Canadian artists. Her art embodies the fusion of modernist European techniques with a uniquely Canadian subject matter. Although troubled as a woman, Emily Carr became a progressive Canadian artist because of her unprecedented use of modernist styles in a Canadian setting. To explore her painting style first I will examine her role as a woman in the art world. Secondly, I will analyze her artistic inspiration from modernist movements. Thirdly, I will explore how her consistent subject matter of landscapes and indigenous culture. Together, these elements combine to make Emily Carr a distinctive painter in Canada.

Dwight Macdonald, in his essay “Masscult & Midcult”, draws a clear distinction between the high and low cultures of the US. He describes the High culture being traditional, where art is intentional and used to portray the artist’s inner emotions (9-10). In high culture art, the audience gets a direct message from the artist through his work, there is no subjectivity towards the individual. The next rung in the declining ladder is that of Folk art. Macdonald classifies Folk art to be like High culture art; however, only for the poor and the secluded, its voice coming from people without power yet its purpose specific towards a singular message (11). It is not for the elite like high culture, yet it is not degrading and exploitive like Masscult

The iconic imagery of George Washington is present in various aspects of everyday life to the average American citizen; his portraits are displayed in government buildings, museums, a mountainside, and even loose pocket change. In a sense, his image has become a pseudo-allegorical figure representing the stability and power of the United States. Although the humble Washington has been documented as discontent with the act of sitting for artists, he patiently allowed hundreds of painters and sculptures to capture his likeness throughout his lifetime. None more frequent than the prominent renaissance-man and close friend, Charles Willson Peale and his family of artistic prodigies. Therefore, on account of his father’s status and success, Rembrandt

The First painting that I was drawn to in the special exhibit “America after the fall: Painting in the 1930s”, was American Gothic by Grant Wood. This was a work that I had seen all through out my life because it was the staple image to represent the steadfast American pioneer spirit. Seeing it in person, rather than reproductions or prints let me realize why it was such an iconic American painting. It was a twentieth century painting with nineteenth century characteristics. The work is in the style of a typical portrait painting in the nineteenth century.

Romanticism and The post impressionism era are two major periods on the time line of art history. Different forms of art including paintings, music, and architecture showed tremendous growth, and ended up making history. This essay compares and contrasts pieces of work such as Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and Joseph Mallord William Turner’s The Slave Ship. These two pieces both represent their own individual time periods, yet have similar characteristics. Both of these paintings have a way of uncovering a story without using a single word.

The tensions between an art that referred to people’s social conditions and an art that transcended race and class politics are represented by the works of two artists active during the 1860s and 1870s: sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis and landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson.

The romantic era was a time in history that had altered how people viewed art, literature, and music, having its own significant style. Many people were known throughout the world for their contributions to the romantic era. Robert Scott Duncanson and Mary Edmonia Lewis were two important artists of the romantic era. The first American artist who will be spoken about is, Robert Scott Duncanson. Duncanson was a self-taught African American painter that was known mainly for his landscape paintings, but also for his portraits and murals. The following artist who will be spoken about Mary Edmonia Lewis. Lewis was known as the first “colored sculptor” in her time. In this paper, it will be discussed how these two artists overcame many obstacles

Beryl Markham was an outstanding role model for the women (and men) of her time. In her book West with the Night, she wrote about the great feats she accomplished in her lifetime; nonetheless, she managed to maintain a humble and caring demeanor. Some of Beryl’s positive traits such as her compassion, responsibility, and quick thinking are shown clearly through her various experiences with the wildlife of Africa. We are introduced to Beryl’s empathetic side when reading about a dramatic encounter from her youth with a seemingly domesticated lion named Paddy. Paddy attacked Beryl and faced the harsh, but fair consequence of being caged for the rest of his life.

Georgia O'Keeffe is an American artist, who lived during American Modernism (“Georgia O’Keeffe”). She inspired many artists throughout her time and even after. She liked to use landscapes and architecture as subject matter (“Georgia O;Keeffe”). The historical context is significant during the time. Her style and type of artwork are very specific to who she was as an artist and a person because she loved the outdoors and beautiful landscapes. I fell in love with her art while in the library finding an artist to write about.

Photographs capture time and create meaning. Mark Klett’s “Under the Dark Cloth”, is a simple, yet compelling piece of art which captures his experience in Monument Valley, Arizona on May 27th, 1989. The perspective of the photograph is strategic in allowing the viewers to see from Klett’s point of view. This angle places the viewer in the first person, connecting them directly to the image. Images of landscapes are often engrossing, Klett’s piece does this on two planes.

Similarly, in the introduction, Broun stated that the show dealt with issues that “America still struggles with today” while Truettner stated “Today, a century after America's creation myth was ushered into the world, we struggle with its inadequacies and insensitivities," indicating that the exhibition was indeed making a comment on contemporary society. This opened up a powerful line of attack against the curators in the comment book with one guest writing, “It is ironic that an exhibit which accuses all American frontier art as being the lowest form of false propaganda should itself resort to propaganda of the most obvious, most popular kind.” (in footnotes another accused the curators of doig exactly what they accused the artists of doing) The historian Thomas Vale mounted a similar criticism, wondering “what ‘hidden agenda’s’ lurk in conscious or subconscious minds of the writers” if one were to apply the same scepticism TWAA applied to Western artists. Vale concludes that, much like the artists, the writers were simply reflecting the social concerns of their times. As displayed throughout this dissertation, this was very much the case and had the curators acknowledged this, they may have staved off some of the criticism,