Thursday, January 28, 2010
Field Trip: Museums
Blog about one to three works of art you saw that interested you. If you can find the images online, include them. Describe what you saw and why you believe the artist made some of the choices made (for example, medium, formal elements, content). What ideas do the pieces you saw at the museum communicate? Remember the lesson we had in class on elements and principles, as well as the analysis exercise we shared. Respond to other classmates who have selected the same work and are posting comments about it.
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At the Salvador Dali Museum, I was drawn to the Dali: Gems exhibit. I love all kinds of jewelry and this exhibit was so intriguing. The piece I chose is the melting clock made of gold and diamonds. All the jewels that Dali created were of thoughts and ideas that he wanted to share. By looking at this piece, it has to do with a lot of lines but the lines have movement. They are not straight their twisty and curvy. I believe he did this to show his twisted mind. He does not try and hide his ideas either; he uses representational art, for example the clock. The shape of the tree and clock seems to be geometric; the clock looks like it is not in its normal form. You can tell by just looking that the texture is rough and also it has a great balance, since the clock is hanging over the branch, if there was no clock the eye would only be drawn to the left side where the tree is. This piece is saying that time is melting away. I can relate to this because I feel like life goes by so fast and sometimes it is hard to realize. At the Museum of Fine Arts in St.Pete the piece that interested me was, The First Lady. This was done by Fernando Botero. The first thing I notice is everything is enlarged. The whole piece represents harmony, everything is big, and not just one thing is small or out of place. The main shape that is repeating itself is circles. I believe that his art is abstract and he does this so that the person who looks at his art can ask themselves why is she so fat here, she is not in real life.
ReplyDeleteAt the Museum of Fine Arts, I chose Julie LeBrun as Flora (1799) by Vigee LeBrun. In the painting, A young woman dresses in ethereal clothing and red shawl, holding a heart-shaped wreath and balancing a basket of fruits and flowers on her head. She’s surrounded by beautiful landscape and an evening sky. The subjects face conveys a thoughtful, almost somber expression while her body seems to be in motion towards the right of the painting. I think this painting communicates a level of closeness between the artist and the subject. The use of red as a garment symbolizes bloodline or kin, while the wreath is in the shape of a heart, which can symbolize love or fondness. The use of soft, flowing colors in the background highlights the subject, giving her an angelic look.
ReplyDeletehttp://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/heartlessinohio/?action=view¤t=JulieasFlora.jpg
One painting I found very interesting was the Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dali at the Dali Museum. In the painting, the viewer is bombarded with many colors, shapes, forms, and subjects in the painting, but if looked closely, all these elements combined form one major portrait of a Spanish toreador. In the painting, the viewer sees statues of Venus, flies, a fallen bull, an Spanish arena, dogs, and floating heads. All of these elements play a major role in supplying underlying information, metaphors, and symbols about the toreador painted within the painting, making me think that Dali specifically painted this picture in memory of this individual.
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/heartlessinohio/?action=view¤t=the_hallucinogenic_toreador.jpg
The piece thatcaught my eye at the Slavador Dali museum was the Hallucinegenic Toreandor. It caught my attention because it was a very large depiction. Also, what caught my attention were the Venus de Milo statues that were all throughout the painting, and the three large ones that were on the right side angled and repeating in a line. They're was so much going on in this piece that it had me mesmerized. The statues were also colored differently versus just the plain white statue it is in real life. The statues interest me alot because I took a lot of art history and latin classes in high school and the Venus de Milo always caught my attention. THere was also fly's all throughout this painting many of them ranging from big to tiny all over. There was two visuals of a cow/bull: there was a head and a full body eating grass. There was rocky cliffs with a lake at the bottom and a random boat in the lake. There were angels at the top of the painting surrounding what looks like a door or an entrance that they look like they are protecting. There was just so much going on in this painting that caught my attention.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Fine Arts Museum, I must say the picture I found most interesting was "Pool Room" by an artist whose name I forgot to write down and at at this point escapes me. My initial attraction to it was simply because it was quite aesthetically pleasing, and I just enjoyed looking at it. It depicts man walking up to a, well, pool hall. He is wearing dirty overalls and a hat, an obvious working man, and is just looking for a dark, quiet place to relax. By all accounts the content of the scene is rather boring, but it was the colors that make it interesting. For instance, the "dirt" on the man's overalls isn't truly visible but implied by a composite of vibrant sparkling blues, reds, and purples, as is the sky. There could be some significance to the similarity between the man's overalls and the sky, but of anything specific I cannot speak. What I can say is that the coloration imbued a very surreal aspect to a very common and almost droll scene.
ReplyDeleteAt the Dali, my favorite was a portrait with the long title which I boiled down to "Gala, Portrait, Lincoln" because I was writing fast. It depicts a naked woman, presumably Gala, gazing off into the distant sunset or something else that we are unable to see. But then when the viewer looks at the painting from a distance, Gala herself becomes part of the scenery which turns out to be a composite portrait of Abraham Lincoln. This was very clever, and amused me. Further more I am a fan of optical illusions such as this in general. My reasoning is that an optical illusion is the ultimate instantiation of interpretation, and yet is not subjective. Your brain actually has to enter into a new state of perception to get the alternate view, but everyone is capable of seeing the exact same thing. The meaning may be ambiguous, just as the figure is itself, in some ways, ambiguous, but this only adds to the mystique and possible effectiveness of what Dali is getting at, if anything at all.
At Dali museum, one of my favorite portraits was "The Language of the Bird." It was created by Dali because he was asked to make an illustration for the Divine Comedy, which is based on Inferno,Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The illustration consisted of a swan, and two men in cloaks almost appearing to be grim reapers. Dali used watercolors to mix the colors and create lines that were wispy. He also used warm and cool colors, such as red for warm and blues and purples for the cool colors. The birds wings created swirls and flowed into the clouds creating movement in the piece. Although it was meant for the whole Dante's Inferno story, it was actually quite a beautiful piece of art. I had a difficult time understanding what Dali was trying to get at with many of his pieces, but this one was easy to interrupt.
ReplyDeleteAlso at the Dali museum I became very intrigued by the Alice in Wonderland story and pictures. It was very interesting seeing his take on the fairy tale. Dali's take on it was a little more darker and abstract. While looking at some of the art work it was difficult to see what actually was in the picture until you read the story to go with it. He used what looked like water colors to make colors blend together. He used both warm and cool colors to create contrasts. I enjoyed that he didn't make the pictures into something Disney did, it was more of an adult version.
At the Fine art Museum, I loved "Poppy" by Georgia O'Keeffe. She really made the painting come alive and look real. She used blues, reds, pinks, and black to create different values and textures. O'Keeffe is known for making some of her art work look like other things, but in this piece it actually looked like a poppy.
-Lauren Gangemi
At the Salvador Dali Museum, one painting that really caught my attention was “The Memory of the Child Woman”. This masterpiece was created using oil on canvas. It interested me because although the majority of the painting is of a bizarre shaped, orange, mask-looking object, my attention immediately focused on the human-like structure at the top of the picture. This structure has the head of a man and the chest of a female, covered in roses. After reading the caption next to the painting, I was able to understand more of the story behind this picture. Dali’s relationship with his lover Gala caused him to disassociate himself from his family. The human-like structure has a male head with tears streaming down its face, which I believe represents his father’s emotions and despair for his son. I believe that the chest of a woman covered in roses represents Gala and his love/attraction for her. There are so many more aspects to this painting that I would love to understand and wish I had the chance to ask Salvador Dali about myself.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thypott-art.com/painting/Salvador_Dali/the_memory_of_the_child_woman
-Kristy Candela
One painting that especially stood out to me at the Salvador Dali Museum was the Daddy Long Legs of the Evening. While looking at this painting I noticed the obvious images such as the horse, the cannon and the tree with the body draped over it. It wasn’t until the lady came over and told me about it that I fully got the understanding of this painting. Overall this is a painting representing war. The cannon is the symbol that signifies this. The horse coming out of the cannon represents the goddess of victory. On top of what looks like a melted body you see two ink wells which symbolizes the broken treaties of the war, on the bottom left corner there is a statue like angel covering his eyes because he does not wish to see the war that is going on. Finally when you look at what appears to be a melted face you can see a daddy long leg. It is said that if you see a daddy long leg in the morning it is bad luck however if you see one in the evening then it will bring you good luck, hence the name of the painting. http://www.theartinpixels.com/salvador-dali/Salvador+Dali+-+Daddy+Longlegs+of+the+Evening+___Hope.jpg.html
ReplyDeleteAnother painting that caught my attention was Study of a Nude. This painting used light nutral colors, a lot of shades of beiges. The main object in this painting is the woman. She looks as though she is sitting on crumpled pieces of paper. Not only does it look like she is sitting on paper but it seems she is gripping the papers with her hand. The posture of this woman makes is seems like she is unsure of something, she is slouching using her arm for support. You don’t know what her facial expression is because her face fades out and you can’t see any facial features at all.
Laura Colman
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/planetarygear/Salvador%20Dali/Self-PortraitintheStudio1919.jpg
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the paintings that really stood out for me. After glancing at it, i was forced to just stand and stare because there are many things that jumped out to me. The colors are perfect and extremely thought out. The warm reds that surround the painter and the blank pictures on the walls are perfect. For me, i felt as though Dali wants us to picture ourselves in that painters chair and make our own "perfect world." You can imagine your family and their pictures on the walls, you imagine the smell of the ocean and look outside to see it. According to the information at the museum, this portrait was a statement about Dali's exploration of light and color and the maximum tonal effect is of pure unmixed colors. These were techniques that he learned from impressionists. This reminded me of an individuals 'perfect spot' and i just immersed myself into this painting and became the man in the chair. This is one of my favorites, it's not extremely out there, but basic and means ten times more.
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n239/planetarygear/Salvador%20Dali/TheFont1930.jpg
This was the second painting that really stuck out to me. There are so many things going on here, and according to the dali museum, this painting presents symbols found in other works of this period. The lion represent's dali's father, and the keys suggest the Freudian notion of unlocking and exploring the secrets of the mind. These points really made this painting ten times more intriguing for me. There are little things that mean something all throughout the painting. Perhaps my favorite would be the eucharist in the middle of the room with an evil looking head staring at it. It reminded me of jealousy, fantasy, and secrets. It's also a very contrived painting. There aren't too many colors, as the meaning of these symbols is really what Dali was going after. This painting really spoke to me and loved how he incorporated numerous points to get his message across.
One of the paintings that caught my eye is by Robert Vickrey and is called the Magic Lantern. This painting intrigued me because it looks realistic; almost like those Henry Selick movies.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is not much going on in the picture, the painter used his canvas well. By using big circles like the pumpkin, or “lantern”, and the key holders, my attention immediately became focused on the left side of the painting. Vickrey shaped his painting very well, not only with the circles, but also with the repeating shadows. It gives the painting an almost 3-D effect.
Also, by focusing the light and color on only the pumpkin and little girl, the background was not a distraction. The contrast with different colors helped me to engage myself within this painting. The background is dark and gloomy, so you know the little girl is not in a bright area, but the light elucidating from the pumpkin shows a twinkle in her eye.
Another painting that captivated me was by Salvador Dali. This painting was called Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages) and it was painted in 1940. I really liked this painting because you can see the old, adolescent, and young faces intertwined with everything in the picture.
Dali used a circle for the center of the painting, drawing my eyes to the adolescent face. From far away, this painting looks like a cliff with a bunch of strange items around it. However, once I stepped closer and analyzed the picture, I was able to see what Dali painted.
Salvador Dali has a unique style that can never be duplicated or recycled. This painting was meant to show the transformation Dali was going through in his life. Each face is raised on a pedestal but is still a part of other images in this painting. It is as if everything is connected, but yet separate at the same time.
Rachel Yonkunas
Guerly Odolphe:
ReplyDeleteOne of the paintings I thought was very interesting at the Salvador Dali Museum was the Three Young Surrealist Women holding in their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra, 1936. In the painting, there are three shapely but mysterious women. Their heads are bushes of flowers, and they are standing on a beach holding instruments that are liquifying and melting away. I think this painting speaks to anyone that is into music because I see the painting as music that comes from inside, and not what the eye can see. The women represent outside beauty, and the instruments are melting away from them because they don’t have the gift on the inside to hold on to them. I like how their heads are made out of flowers so they don’t really have any sort of identity. The background seems like an unhappy place because it’s mostly black and white with other dreary colors.
http://www.daliweb.tampa.fl.us/63.htm
Alyssa Marsdale
ReplyDeleteAfter my second time visiting the Dali museum, I noticed a painting that I must have missed the last time I went. What struck me was the oil painting titled “Girl with Curls”. In this piece, you are able to really note his style of work at which he is well known for (surrealism), for it creates somewhat of a dreamy effect. You can also see how the girl is not fully proportional. Dali uses many vibrant colors which he is also known for. I feel like her back is turned because she might be afraid possibly for the life that is to come. It’s almost as if she could even be running away from someone, something, or even the life she is living. From a representational standpoint, the ground where she stands is very dark and eerie. This could represent what she is experiencing at the moment. What’s abstract is the shape and figure of the girl’s body. The girl appears to be all warm colors and very detailed, showing a lot of texture. There is a lot of light usage and equal positive and negative space.
Another image that really caught my eye, was the one of the “Torso of Aphrodite” which was at the St. Pete. Museum of Art. I liked this one a lot, because I really enjoy Greek and Roman Art, but also because this piece was just absolutely beautiful. The piece was a sculpture of marble and is Aphrodite standing on her right leg where most of her weight is, while the left is slightly bent. The drapery doesn’t completely cover her body, but it drew much attention to the pose of Aphrodite. It reveals a good bit of her nude body, but does not reveal her pelvic area. This is representational obviously because it is of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. There is a lot of texture followed by the usage of line and curvature. It is very intricate and detailed, and really just keeps you speechless.
Of the two Mueseums i like the Dali the best. the Dali had unique and very interesting paintings and sculptures. I like two paintings in the mueseum. The first was the Fantasier Diurnes. This painting had a wierd shape like a blob in the center. The shape was not any geometric shape and but was abstract. The shape had other ojects and shapes in the middle of it. in the foreground there was a rams skull. The blob like shape was nonobjective and the shape was an anomaly. The second painting was the self portrait of Dali when he was 17, just before he was excepted into the Madrid school of art. The portrait was a side view of Dali, but his eye was peering right at you almost indifferent to you. Dali had a black hat and a pipe in his mouth. the colors were very harmonious since the black, grey and dark blue blended together well. The red which was the shirt though little comapared to the use of the other dark colors only emphazied the dark blue and black.
ReplyDeleteThe first piece was called Portrait of Alice Coopers brain, 1973. It was a 3D hologram image of alice cooper sitting with his legs crossed in a contemplating position. I liked this on because Dali was one of the first artists to use 3D holograms in his art. The piece is constructed by placing multiple vertical strip holograms on a cylinder, then the rotation of that cylinder creates the image of alice cooper. It is also in many different colors depending on how you look at. This form of art combined both photography and cinematography to create something totally new.
ReplyDeleteAnother piece I looked at was a painting called Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy, The three ages, 1940. This was a painting with three different faces that made up the different stages of life. The first face, infancy, was made up of rocks and light colors with an open sky maybe to resemble the fact that you have just been born and you have nothing holding you down. The adolescence face is covered by trees and the eyes are mountains, saying that you have learned something and you have a foundation but its still growing like trees. The third face is covered by a brick wall and looks old. The face is also made of the side of a cliff with breaking branches symbolizing the fact the the end is near. It also has a drastically darker color than the infancy face.
-Ryan Lowe
Emily Rice
ReplyDelete02-09-2010
My week started off by going to the R. K. Bailey Art Gallery to find a piece of artwork that I did not feel was a well-designed piece of art. It was difficult at first, but then I came across a piece with a face on the bottom, right corner. It is a very dark, shaded portrait of Michael Jackson’s face with only a little bit of his collarbone area as if he had been sliced at that spot. Jackson’s face is very detailed with lines and dots exposing facial hair and the shadows under his eyes. The portrait almost looked so intricate that it might have been a print but the texture of the diamond dust in his hair made it look hand drawn.
The composition had too much negative space; there was no other place for the eye to travel. The artist wanted concentration solely on the face of Michael Jackson, with the dark eyes, dark hair and dark demeanor. The floating cut-off head does not feel balanced on the page, not even asymmetrically. There is no closure to this piece, no depth, no transparency, no movement and very little content
I also found a piece of art work that I thought was a very well designed. This particular piece is very vibrant in color with its Florida sunset-like red/orange sky, which took up a good three quarters of the canvas. The hatching gesture and overlapping of the bright colors gave the sky more depth, texture and value with its jagged movement.
At the bottom of the canvas is a dark, black silhouette of the University of Tampa Minarets. Coming out of the University of Tampa silhouette is a large, bright red ladder with an angelic creature that has wings larger than the human figure attached to it and it’s flying/floating/climbing this ladder of education and power into the sky where there are no limits.
I feel that this is a well-composed and designed piece of art because of the lack of negative space, the content and the emotion it brought to me while admiring it. The majority of the canvas is covered; there is very little blank space. The content of the university’s minarets against a bright sky is very empowering; it gives off the feeling of being able to accomplish anything. The angel and ladder are the largest parts of the piece; the ladder starting just to the left of the middle of campus, moving upward to the left corner. Where as the minarets are much smaller in scale but it still gives the piece a harmonious composition. Because of the placement and form of the angel and ladder it forces the eye to travel across the entire piece, taking in all it has to offer.