What I've Learned from Art

A lot.

We sure have learned a lot over the past four months, everything from paintings to motion pictures. The unit that I found to be most challenging was controversial art, I believe Unit 3. The units that I most enjoyed were our units on painting and the camera arts...a picture really is worth a thousand words and more. The unit I didn't particulary like was the printmaking, Unit 11 (?) The unit that I learned the most from was our unit on sculpture.

What has most impressed me about the world of art are actually two things that I didn't fully understand before. The first would be just how much goes into a work of art, physically. Paintings and sculptures and drawings are always much easier than they appear.

The Sistine Chapel, for example, by no means looks like it was easy to paint, but I didn't realize that it was a piece four full years in the making. And sculptures: looking at them form a distance, especially from out of a book or on the computer, they are very beautiful, but you cannot see the intricate detail. Up close, when looking at a sculpture, you remember what it came from. You can envision that big block of stone and the simplicity of it, and then realize that the sculptor has created something out of nothing. You can see the careful carving of every line and curve, and texture of that piece of work. You can really appreciate it.

Learning about little things such as space and focal points and color and depth in a picture help me to see that piece in a new way. I can understand the effort and thought and labor that goes into the piece. I can really appreciate it all now.

I think that the biggest thing I will take from this class is a greater understand of humanity, something I think that we are all striving for on a subconcious level. I think that I understand people a little bit better now. It has been great being able to read everyone's thoughts in their blogs; which really help to see their view on art. Being able to see things from anothers point of view is a wonderful thing to have.

I have learned that art is personal: all art is personal. Paintings, music, sculptures, artictecture, movies; they all mean something different to each of us. Though we look at the same piece of work, we see two different things. It all has to do with our individual backgrounds, our stories, what we belive and what we have been through in our lives. This is why I love how art is never, ever black and white, and it is always open for interpretation. It is special in a different way to everyone.

Im glad that I took this class because it has broadened my thinking, if that makes sense. Especially with that controversial art, or art that I don't necessarily like. It is all about not so much hating the art itself, but looking deeper: understanding the intentions of the artist, the feeling behind it.

With this, I have become much more open and appreciate, I'm sure my classmates have too. Choosing to take Art 10 was a great descision. This is one of the few classes in college I will be able to apply to life.

Thanks to Michelle for her patience, enthusiasm, and a great semester!

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art to me is something tangible, something that we would not necessarily considered to actually be art. It is entirely subjective, and to each person, it is different...as all art is. I think that reading about Yoko Ono and her works helped me to understand this. She took a match, lit it up, and watched it burn. When you just look at it, you see a match, burning. But when you really see that match, what does it mean to you?

I thought about this, and there are many different ways you can look at it. To me, the match represents life and death. It is lit, and burns with radience. There is a giant spark at the beginning. We shine brightly throughout our lives, as the fire burns down the match. When it is time for us to go peacefully, the fire will quietly come to a halt at the end of the stick.

The thing that I like best about conceptual art is that it tells something like it is. With most all other forms of art, the emotion and "point" of the artwork is exaggerated or brought out with the artsy stuff: the paint, clay, oil and so on. But conceptual art is very raw and original; what you see is really what you get.

Art Visit!!

Like most of you, I took a trip down to the Crocker Art Museum...and I actually really enjoyed it! Much more than I expected to. I went at a quiet time of the day after the kids from the elementary schools took their field trips, and it was much more pleasent. (That is me in the picture above with my new friend: Overcooked, Robert Areson, 1973, Terra Cotta/Wood).




A note before I begin: taking this class has given me a great insight into the world of art. Two years ago, I was at the Louvre in Paris, completely baffled by all of the fantastic pieces of art in there (any of you who have been know what I mean...it is really just amazing). I have to say that the museum I visited was 1/20th of the size of the Louvre, without all of the historical pieces and value of the Louvre ( Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is insured for $670 million US dollars), I was able to appreciate the work that I saw in the Crocker more. I looked at probably, 100+ pieces of art, but I was able to really analyze and value each piece and its details. This class has been valueable to my college education, but I will remember the art tools I have learned here forever!

My brother and I visited the museum on a Monday. It was a nice sunny day to be there...we did a little outside observing, then went in, paid, got our brochure and got started. (I thought it was nice that they give a student discount). As soon as you enter this museum, you can see that is very well polished, well kept. The woodwork, staircase and painting on the walls and ceiling are magnificent...has a Victorian theme to it. I liked the furniture in there too.

We decided to start on the second floor. This floor consists of a ballroom (that you first walk into), and two wings called the "Cowell" and "Inderkum" galleries. There was a featured exhibition there, fellow Northern Californian, Edwin Deakin (1838-1923). I loved his paintings! Beautiful pictures of Californian scenery and also European landscape. Unfortunately, the lady at the foyer desk told me absolutely no pictures on this floor. I had two favorite paintings of his that I really liked: there was one of Notre Dame Cathedral in France, and the other was a picture of the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Beautiful! To show you an example of his work, I was able to pull this picture to the right up off of Google Images. It is called Palace of Fine Arts and the Lagoon, San Francisco. Its a little blurry...but you kinda get the idea of his style.

Our next trip was upstairs to the second floor. I liked the variation in the art in these galleries. This floor, we were allowed to take some pictures on. The "Ose" gallery was interesting; it had the sculptures and three-dimensional artwork. There was a huge, mirror, multiple-angle looking piece...I can't really describe it, that you could walk into. A glass ladder with pieces of blasted glass on it of all different shapes and colors; I stared at this for 10 minutes and couldn't quite figure out what it meant. There was this Victorian looking...cake thing? It stood about 3 or 4 feet high and had all sorts of stuff, pearls, mirrors, lace, from the 1800's all glued together in the shape of a cake. And, of course, my friend Overcooked was here too!

The next gallery we entered was probably my favorite. Called the "Tsakopolus" gallery, this is where all of the colorful, exotic pieces were. The five pictures that I have above and below this purple paragraph were the ones I liked the best. That picture of the elderly man in the top left was spectacular. It was the size of the entire wall, probably 20ft x 20ft, just massive. I liked the painting in the middle because it was pretty and sparkly, two young Asian girls under a tree. The one that I am displaying was the most colorful of all (very appropriate for the city that it's in!) the Golden Gate Bridge.

Below to the left is one I couldn't really figure out but liked anyway, that big orange block. It's amazing how people see that as art. The painting to the lower right was my favorite in the whole gallery. I love Native American artwork even more than I love Reniassance artwork. This painting was very well done and had a lot of meaning. I am not Native American myself, but I can certainly appreciate the message.


The piece is Browning of America, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 2000, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas. It is a painting of the United States through Indians' eyes. There is the geographical outline of the country, with Indian people and animals in their environment like wild dog and buffalo. Then to the right it lists in very light print "Invaders of the East:" Anglos, Saxons, Celts, Visigots, Frisans, Iberians, Druids, etc. The way that I interpret this is, Native Americans were originally here: this is their land. We, those of the East and West, have taken from them their own soil. The Brown smear looking streaks I think are the blood shed of the Native American people, and the tears from loss of the land and culture. Truly a beautiful piece of art...this painting really captivated me.



























Altogether, a great, great visit. I don't think there was anything I didn't like. Well, I guess the museum staff could have been more friendly, but that's about it. I would have liked to see more. But I was very happy with my visit; definately worth the trip down there. Viewing the art in person is so much better than seeing it in a book. It comes to life when you can see it in its full size and texture. You can really see more of the detail that the artist puts in, every inch of every piece is carefully thought out and constructed, whether it be a painting, a scultpture, a work of clay of aluminum (I saw a few of those!)


More than anything, you can see the piece just as the artist made it. When we look at art on the computer or in our text, there is much lost in translation. We can see that it is a beatiful piece of work, but cannot fully grasp its depth and complexity as we can when it is there in front of us. When we see it in "real life," we are looking at it exactly as the artist sees it; we see it from his or her point of view. When we see the piece in its most radiant view, we can fully appreciate its worth.


My trip to Crocker Museum was better than I thought: I was pleasantly surprised. I will now make an effort to stop in art museum's in major cities, because now I can really appreciate them.

Two Worlds Collide

The work of Aziz and Cucher is a little bit disturbing to me because I don't really understand it, and I don't know how to interpret it. It is certainly artwork, yes. What I am looking at are faces of people, appearently of all races. They have their hair, and their skin, their noses, but are missing their mouths and their eyes. So I am trying to put meaning to that.

Well, the eyes are the windows to our soul. The emotions that we feel in our hearts are poured out through our eyes. We see the entire entity of another soul in the person's eyes. They allow us to see and percieve our world. The mouth is our means of communication. As human beings, we comunicate with our voice; we are the only species on earth that has the ability to do that. We smile, frown and show our feeling with our mouth.

So, what I have put together is that Aziz and Cucher have taken away the two parts of our body that allow us to show emotion, and our personality. Our personality and being is our identity. That taken, we are unidentifiable entities walking about, and ostensively, we are all the same. As Adrian Rudolph said that this work is "cultural, commenting, perhaps, on the gradual but waxing loss of identity and the means of communication in a technological environment that promotes anonymity and conformity”. I think what he means is that, with today what society has become, and what has been promoted via technology, we have all lost our identity in conformity.

As for the manipulation of digital images: I think that it is really sad, especially reading about the astronomical increase in breast augmentation procedures. It saddens me very much to know that there are so many women out there that think that they will be happier people if only they had a bigger bust. I don't think that all of these women in entertainment and in real life that have breast implants realize the effect that they are having on women of all ages all around the country.

I think that the biggest problem related to this has to do with men. They see these women on television and in Maxim and Playboy and they think that this is what the ideal woman should look like. Now I should say here that not all men are like this: there are you good guys out there that like natural. But, there are many, many men that now have their heads wrapped around the notion that women need huge fake breasts to be beautiful. And in turn, women feel that this is what they need to be appealing to men. What a nasty cycle we have got ourselves into!

Unfortunatley, I have seen this happen in my personal life twice in the last year. I know a woman in her early forties, recently moved to California with her family. Her husband of many years just kind of casually mentioned to her one day, "Hey, honey, have you ever thought about a breast augmentation?" So what does she do after this? Gets them done. Went from a 32A to a 32D to please the husband (and herself, so she claims).

I can't really explain how I felt after I found out about this. Disgusted, of course. But more than anything, I was really sad. SO sad. Oh my goodness. If my boyfriend ever said that to me, I would be so incredibly upset. I would feel very...reduced. And I know that in her heart, the women that I'm talking about felt like this, though she will never say it. It's like, "Who I am as a person, every single wonderful, good quality that I have isn't enough to keep you loving me? All of that is overlooked?"

I must say that we women are just as bad: we put just as much pressure on men to have the perfect bodies too. My bottom line with all of this is: we are all perfect as we are. Please don't take the cover models seriously, guys and girls. If you truly love someone, the outside doesn't matter. So love your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife as they are.

My Favorite Painting

What a good idea for a blog! I have come to understand that most of you, classmates, had a bit of a tough time deciding on a special painting for this assignment. I hate to say it, but my reaction was entirely the opposite. Though I know there is an infinate number of spectacular paintings in our world, only one came to mind for me: Michealangelo's Creation of Adam--my favorite, favorite. Can you believe this painting took years to complete? Amazing...

This magnificent piece of art was completed in 1511 A.D. by the very famous Michaelangelo. The Creation of Adam is painted onto the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City (Italy), and the medium Michaelangelo used was fresco ( the ink/limewater mixture). On this note: I have learned that fresco was widely used by the painters of the Renaissance (Michaelangelo's era) as well as the Greeks and Romans.

This painting has been said to be one of the most famous in the world; I'm sure that most of you recognize the image above. In case you are wondering what exactly the painting means, it is a depiction of God giving Adam his first breath of life, a passage out of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testement in the Christian Bible. God is the powerful looking man with the white beard; Adam would be the naked man in a relaxed position on what appears to be a sheet or a cloud, soulfully looking into the eyes of God. There is a slight distance between the two, the fingers just barely touching is God sending into Adam the spark of life.

A little bit about about the man behind the painting: well, Im sure every one has heard of the artist Michaelangelo at some point or another. One of the most known painters of the Renaissance and without a doubt in the history of art. To the right is a headshot of him; you are looking at one of the most talented men of all time. Not only an incredible painter, but also an architect, poet and engineer who made invaluable contributions to the Renaissance. He was right there, side by side with Leonardo da Vinci, another very famous Italian of that era.

Michaelangelo's most famous work, by far and wide, is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He was invited to do this work by Pope Julius II, and completed the 12 apostles, 9 episodes and altogether 300 figures in just over four years (wow!) The most impressive part of this whole feat: he painted the entire ceiling lying on his back.

Very often, you will see the centralized version of this painting (which I love); with the close up of these two fingers just barely touching each other. See below:

This brings me to why I chose this painting. Ok, I'll be honest--the first reason is that it is hanging in my living room. Another reason: I attended Catholic School earlier on, and in the back of our church was an enormous replica of this painting, so the memories, good memories, come back when I see it.

Most of all though: there is something about this painting, and for that matter most of the old Renaissance art work that is unlike any other. There is a mysticism, and an eroticism about it. To me, it is almost otherworldy (as it literally depicts)...I swear to this day that there is truly no artwork like the artwork that came out of the Renaissance. An uncomparable beauty...