Rene Magritte’s painting titled “Empire of Light” created in 1953-54; I saw it hanging in the Peggy Guggenheim gallery when we were in Venice. This was not a required place to visit, but we had a free day and the Guggenheim was one of the places that a majority of the class went to. I was lucky enough to wander into this gallery later in the day and there were not many people so I had a lot of these amazing works of art all to my self!
The piece of art that I choose was this painting called the “Empire of Light” it was a stunningly realistic painting showing a street scene; house, street light, tree and a little fence. The interesting thing about this picture is that the foreground was all dark as if it were night time, but the sky was a brilliant, glowing blue with perfect little clouds scattered throughout the sky. This created a spectacular contrast between the dark foreground with everything so dark and quiet, and the background, which seemed so real that it might start moving if you watched it long enough.
I’m not completely sure why this image appealed to me so very much, but its contrast between night time and day time, light and dark, stillness and movement its so strong that its hard to look at any other picture in the room. It sucks you in right away, from clear across the room. Had these two different times of day not been combined into one, the image would have been very boring and typical. I think that’s what makes it so interesting when they are combined; it’s this image of a clean neat little house, showing what seemed to be the perfect neighborhood. It’s the classic image of a suburban home, but thrown into confusion by putting it in this state of both night and day at the same time.
The framing and position of the subject and its accoutrements has been carefully placed, just so that it feels so everyday and normal, an image you would expect to see in almost every neighborhood in America. It makes you wonder why the artist made the house and surrounding area in night and the sky in day, why not the other way around? Maybe its purpose is to make you think twice about how normal and safe this home looks, and maybe wonder if it really is. What’s just inside that window? What goes on in this neighborhood? The sky remains blue, clear and clean showing its purity, the sky is just there, nothing sinister or unknown about it. This seems almost as if its pointing out the purity and innocence of nature versus the dark and often damaging nature of people and our habitats.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Vatican Museum
Well as you know from my previous posts, I went to Rome in the last few days and spent all my time either in galleries or seeing amazing sights. One of the places that I went that I was most excited about was the Vatican Museum and all the sights in the Vatican City area. We set out early in the morning so that we could have as much time in the gallery as possible, and maybe try to beat the line and get through before it was a million degrees out. We were actually able to get our entire group out of the hotel, get there, and make in through the whole line in very good time, so before I knew it I was already in the gallery and prepared for a day packed full of art! I was immediately met with hieroglyphics and a real, perfectly preserved mummy! Way to start off the day! As you worked through the gallery it jumps around to various time periods, art styles, mediums and artists so you are almost always surprised by what you are met with in the very next room. This inconsistency helped to keep you on your toes and helps to keep you from zoning out as you moved from room to room.
The gallery was absolutely huge; I could not believe the size of it! It was originally built as a palace for the popes of the renaissance time, many additions have been made since it was originally built, it was first many buildings that were later connected and turned into a gallery for the many pieces of art that the various popes had collected over centuries.
They had work from every famous artist that you could imagine, I saw works of art that I never thought I would ever be able to see outside of an art text book or in my art history classes. Almost like a kid in a candy store I ran around with my camera snapping shot after shot of the various famous works of art, along with the many others that I had never heard of but they still amazed me nonetheless.
Of all the things in the gallery the one thing that I was very disappointed with was just the atmosphere of the space itself, it was packed full of people who were all snapping there camera, yelling to their friends, and herding though in large obnoxious tour groups. I felt that had it been quieter and less busy my experience would have been even more amazing! It was especially apparent when I was in the Sistine chapel, upon walking in you are immediately bombarded with people, flashes and yelling. Because the Sistine chapel is so well known it is especially popular and people spend much more time packed into this little room looking up and trying to sneak pictures.
Quick side note on cameras and such, with the help of a few I have finally figured out why exactly cameras are banned from a lot of these attractions. First of all the flash of a camera can deteriorate the fragile material of these pieces of art that they try so very hard to preserve. I knew that from the beginning, but the issue I had with it, is why then can you not take a picture of the David… he is made of marble, flash will not hurt that. Apparently they use to allow cameras in the area that they had the David, and it was a mess I guess, people were not looking at the sculpture, and they were instead more concerned with taking pictures of themselves posing with it. I’d image it would be rather difficult to have a nice unobstructed view if there are twelve people in front of you posing and pushing for a close up picture.
OK back to the Sistine Chapel, they did not allow flash or pictures in general, so people who really wanted pictures had to sneak them from inside their bag or something of that sort. Many were not being so discreet about taking these pictures, about every few minutes you would see a flash and this would be immediately followed by the yell of a guard, “No Photo!” I was very excited about chapel and I could not wait to see it, but when I walked into the room I was instantly filled with disappointment, this was not the amazing colorful room that I had seen in textbooks.
Leaving that I was frustrated with the mass of people and very disappointed with the chapel’s failure to meet all my expectations. I filed through the rest of the gallery and made my way to St. Peters Basilica expecting it to be just as full of people and frustrating as the rest. Upon walking into the basilica I stopped in awe, this was far better, bigger and more amazing than any picture I had ever seen of it. There we just as many people as I expected but since it was so huge, they were spread out and it was quite easy to maneuver around people or snap a picture that is not blocked by a huge crowd of people.
The architecture was absolutely amazing! I could not believe that this was built without modern day construction equipment. The part of the architecture that appealed most to me was the complex and impressive arches that completely lined the ceiling. We have seen that same style of arch systems all over Italy in all the different chapels and basilicas, but these stood out so much more to me. The style of arches that I’m speaking of is where six smaller arches intersect in the center to create a structure that is as strong as possible. I loved this! The basilica was one of my favorite places that I have gone to this entire time, it was just so huge and amazing! Still right now thinkning about it I cant get over the size and how it had so much going on decoration-wise but at the same time it was not cluttered or too much to look at. It was perfect!
The gallery was absolutely huge; I could not believe the size of it! It was originally built as a palace for the popes of the renaissance time, many additions have been made since it was originally built, it was first many buildings that were later connected and turned into a gallery for the many pieces of art that the various popes had collected over centuries.
They had work from every famous artist that you could imagine, I saw works of art that I never thought I would ever be able to see outside of an art text book or in my art history classes. Almost like a kid in a candy store I ran around with my camera snapping shot after shot of the various famous works of art, along with the many others that I had never heard of but they still amazed me nonetheless.
Of all the things in the gallery the one thing that I was very disappointed with was just the atmosphere of the space itself, it was packed full of people who were all snapping there camera, yelling to their friends, and herding though in large obnoxious tour groups. I felt that had it been quieter and less busy my experience would have been even more amazing! It was especially apparent when I was in the Sistine chapel, upon walking in you are immediately bombarded with people, flashes and yelling. Because the Sistine chapel is so well known it is especially popular and people spend much more time packed into this little room looking up and trying to sneak pictures.
Quick side note on cameras and such, with the help of a few I have finally figured out why exactly cameras are banned from a lot of these attractions. First of all the flash of a camera can deteriorate the fragile material of these pieces of art that they try so very hard to preserve. I knew that from the beginning, but the issue I had with it, is why then can you not take a picture of the David… he is made of marble, flash will not hurt that. Apparently they use to allow cameras in the area that they had the David, and it was a mess I guess, people were not looking at the sculpture, and they were instead more concerned with taking pictures of themselves posing with it. I’d image it would be rather difficult to have a nice unobstructed view if there are twelve people in front of you posing and pushing for a close up picture.
OK back to the Sistine Chapel, they did not allow flash or pictures in general, so people who really wanted pictures had to sneak them from inside their bag or something of that sort. Many were not being so discreet about taking these pictures, about every few minutes you would see a flash and this would be immediately followed by the yell of a guard, “No Photo!” I was very excited about chapel and I could not wait to see it, but when I walked into the room I was instantly filled with disappointment, this was not the amazing colorful room that I had seen in textbooks.
Leaving that I was frustrated with the mass of people and very disappointed with the chapel’s failure to meet all my expectations. I filed through the rest of the gallery and made my way to St. Peters Basilica expecting it to be just as full of people and frustrating as the rest. Upon walking into the basilica I stopped in awe, this was far better, bigger and more amazing than any picture I had ever seen of it. There we just as many people as I expected but since it was so huge, they were spread out and it was quite easy to maneuver around people or snap a picture that is not blocked by a huge crowd of people.
The architecture was absolutely amazing! I could not believe that this was built without modern day construction equipment. The part of the architecture that appealed most to me was the complex and impressive arches that completely lined the ceiling. We have seen that same style of arch systems all over Italy in all the different chapels and basilicas, but these stood out so much more to me. The style of arches that I’m speaking of is where six smaller arches intersect in the center to create a structure that is as strong as possible. I loved this! The basilica was one of my favorite places that I have gone to this entire time, it was just so huge and amazing! Still right now thinkning about it I cant get over the size and how it had so much going on decoration-wise but at the same time it was not cluttered or too much to look at. It was perfect!
pictures
i put up new pictures in my THIRD flickr account, if you notice the names are all different, there is steviwonderful, stevi.sayer and stevi.sayler2 so check them all out!
Text Reading
For one of my last required posts, I had a text that I had to read and now I guess I talk about it! This was a very interesting article called “Architecturally Speaking Practices of Art, Architecture and the Everyday” we read the third chapter entitled “Getting lost and the localized mind”. The article addressed the idea that the act of getting lost is a very subjective thing and today in this society it is almost impossible to become really and truly lost. According to the text, there are various ways and degrees of becoming lost and then processed to define what it is to become lost. “Getting lost could mean being outside the limits, off track, cheated by the ambiguities of a place.” This can be a very uncomfortable thing for most people; they often stick to familiar places or make sure that they can identify their location on a sign or map. The article tells of how truly frightened people are of getting lost because it means they will then lack all the security and comfort that knowing how to get back to where they came from. One of the forms of getting lost is being forced to become oriented in a new environment when trying to live or navigate with our prior knowledge or friends. When doing this you are taken from an environment that you know and you have to learn how to get around, make friends and make many mistakes as you try to go about doing everyday things. This text relates directly to our situation here, we have had to learn an entirely different way of life, and make so many mistakes along the way to learn how to simply cope. Coping is almost all we could do, it seems that no matter how hard you try you will never truly fit in and be just like everyone else in this new culture. The question the text poses is, is it possible for a person who has moved into a new culture to ever really find one to belong to again? That question seems most relevant in my situation, I can always feel people’s eyes on me, they know that I am different from them and they judge me because I am a foreigner. It seems that I can’t get away from that stigma of the loud, ignorant American tourist.
This text was what we as a group based a lot of our ideas for our installation on, that feeling of being frustrated, uncomfortable and frightened in a new environment that is not that accepting of you. I sort of already addressed what the basic structure and idea behind the cube was, but not in great detail. We decided to share our feelings of being awkward and not feeling accepted by creating a structure that is awkward, in the way and not understood by those around it.
This text was what we as a group based a lot of our ideas for our installation on, that feeling of being frustrated, uncomfortable and frightened in a new environment that is not that accepting of you. I sort of already addressed what the basic structure and idea behind the cube was, but not in great detail. We decided to share our feelings of being awkward and not feeling accepted by creating a structure that is awkward, in the way and not understood by those around it.
Villa Borghese
The first place that we went to in Rome was the Villa Borghese; it was a very large villa that had been converted into a gallery for mostly renaissance art. It was completely surrounded by a huge sprawling garden full of statues by various famous artists such as Bernini. Every room had an impressive and colorful fresco on the ceiling and the walls were covered with paintings that I could easily recognize from my art history classes. The ground floor was reserved for sculptures while the second floor was all frescos, paintings and mosaics. The piece that stood out to me the very most I have to admit was not originally because of the artwork or the skill, but rather the subject that caught my attention. This was a beautifully dressed woman with her eyes fixed right on you, that seem to follow you where ever you go thought out the room. But the thing I notice first and had to let out a little giggle of joy for was a tiny baby unicorn sitting in her lap. This brought me more happiness than any famous piece of art ever could I'm afraid, it’s a BABY UNICORN! The subject matter is not a good reason to pick a painting to talk about, I know. But after looking further at this piece of art I began to like it more and more for aspects that I did not originally notice.
This painting was titled, “Lady with a Unicorn” painted by Raffaello it showed a very beautiful blond haired, pale skinned woman set in front of perfectly arranged architecture that framed her into the picture perfectly. Two columns on either side of her helped to frame the perfect blue sky around her head; this sky was almost the same stunning blue as her eyes. The color only occurred these two times, making it that much more stunning and attention grabbing. Another very stunning color that was used is a dark maroon that was used both on the very large puffy sleeves of her dress and on a jeweled pendant that hung around her neck. The folds and shifts in the material is done so perfectly, it looked so realistic and one thing that really amazed me was the fact that you could recognize that her dress was made of satin or something with an equal amount of sheen. I’m always so impressed when I see a painting have qualities that I thought could only be captured in a photograph or in life.
The color and shades of light and dark are balanced quite nicely between top and bottom and the two sides. The brilliant blue of the sky and her eyes balances the very attention grabbing color of the woman’s dress out. That creates a very nice effect that makes it easier on your eyes to look around the painting and it also makes it easier for the artists to control where you’re eyes will travel to next. Between the two sides, left and right, the painting is almost symmetrical, the only thing that is really different between the two sides is the fact that she holds the tiny unicorn in her lap on the left side. I feel that doing this makes your eye travel directly to that one thing that is different, the unicorn. He wants you to stop and to notice this little mythical creature and think about it and how it doesn’t really fit because it’s a completely made up animal, maybe there is a story behind it that we don’t know. You are forced to think about these things and to try to find the deeper meaning behind why there is a unicorn and where this woman may have gotten it.
I first picked this painting because of the subject matter and the fact that it is not common to see a mythical creature in renaissance art. Then after looking closer at the piece of art I was able to appreciate its much more subtle aspects that make it pleasing to look at and the true skill that went into creating such a true to life portrait of a woman.
This painting was titled, “Lady with a Unicorn” painted by Raffaello it showed a very beautiful blond haired, pale skinned woman set in front of perfectly arranged architecture that framed her into the picture perfectly. Two columns on either side of her helped to frame the perfect blue sky around her head; this sky was almost the same stunning blue as her eyes. The color only occurred these two times, making it that much more stunning and attention grabbing. Another very stunning color that was used is a dark maroon that was used both on the very large puffy sleeves of her dress and on a jeweled pendant that hung around her neck. The folds and shifts in the material is done so perfectly, it looked so realistic and one thing that really amazed me was the fact that you could recognize that her dress was made of satin or something with an equal amount of sheen. I’m always so impressed when I see a painting have qualities that I thought could only be captured in a photograph or in life.
The color and shades of light and dark are balanced quite nicely between top and bottom and the two sides. The brilliant blue of the sky and her eyes balances the very attention grabbing color of the woman’s dress out. That creates a very nice effect that makes it easier on your eyes to look around the painting and it also makes it easier for the artists to control where you’re eyes will travel to next. Between the two sides, left and right, the painting is almost symmetrical, the only thing that is really different between the two sides is the fact that she holds the tiny unicorn in her lap on the left side. I feel that doing this makes your eye travel directly to that one thing that is different, the unicorn. He wants you to stop and to notice this little mythical creature and think about it and how it doesn’t really fit because it’s a completely made up animal, maybe there is a story behind it that we don’t know. You are forced to think about these things and to try to find the deeper meaning behind why there is a unicorn and where this woman may have gotten it.
I first picked this painting because of the subject matter and the fact that it is not common to see a mythical creature in renaissance art. Then after looking closer at the piece of art I was able to appreciate its much more subtle aspects that make it pleasing to look at and the true skill that went into creating such a true to life portrait of a woman.
Monday, August 27, 2007
blogtime
well i said i would write a blog today, so here it is! i didnt find the time to write out my required ones yet, there will be four of them on the sites that we went in rome, a response to a really sweet reading we did and then a final post. so those are super fun things to look forward to! magical fun time for everyone!
i just finished my one and only italian test and it was like 5 questions long and super easy, so i can't compain about being stuck in there, because i figure he just took pitty on us and knew we couldnt learn that much in only five classes. we didn't even learn helpful things for living in italy, it was grammar. sweet. but im so very happy to be done with that, now i jsut have to finish some blogs and do a few other things and i will be all done with my work for this summer term thing.
what else can i talk about, we finished the construction of our cube shape all around town yesterday, there was much sweat, even more tape and a little blood, but we got it all done! i can't wait to see the pictures all put togther, we took them almost time lapse style and we are going to show it like a stop motion video in the gallery. omg its gonnna rock! its just us constructing a giant cube, putting some people in it, then tearing it down in a public place. i don't think there are any pictures online yet of what it looked like, but rest assured, the second there are, they will be on here! it turned out amazingly well and our work and time definately paid off.
so now all that is left to do is some odds and ends to get ready for the gallery here, and then the whole rome thing. i have to leave here the same day everyone else heads back home, but instead of going home i have to hangout in rome for two more days. i guess i can't compain, how many people get to just chill out in Rome on their own. but im so ready for my own bed, my family, good food and NO MORE ITALIAN MEN! but i guess i can take this opporitunity to buy some more pope gear and maybe another knockoff purse!! anyone want a sweet charm with the popes face on it?
hmmmmmmmmmmm whatelsewhatelsewhatelse... ive done very little today other than study a little and paint my nails. i don't imagine that would be to interesting for all you wonderful readers. whom ever you may be.
i want to be home right now. damn. i love it here, don't get me wrong, but it hits a certain point where you just want to be able to do nothing at all. or to not have to worry about anyhting going wrong.
well i should go get some more work done. but i will try to post more tmro!
i just finished my one and only italian test and it was like 5 questions long and super easy, so i can't compain about being stuck in there, because i figure he just took pitty on us and knew we couldnt learn that much in only five classes. we didn't even learn helpful things for living in italy, it was grammar. sweet. but im so very happy to be done with that, now i jsut have to finish some blogs and do a few other things and i will be all done with my work for this summer term thing.
what else can i talk about, we finished the construction of our cube shape all around town yesterday, there was much sweat, even more tape and a little blood, but we got it all done! i can't wait to see the pictures all put togther, we took them almost time lapse style and we are going to show it like a stop motion video in the gallery. omg its gonnna rock! its just us constructing a giant cube, putting some people in it, then tearing it down in a public place. i don't think there are any pictures online yet of what it looked like, but rest assured, the second there are, they will be on here! it turned out amazingly well and our work and time definately paid off.
so now all that is left to do is some odds and ends to get ready for the gallery here, and then the whole rome thing. i have to leave here the same day everyone else heads back home, but instead of going home i have to hangout in rome for two more days. i guess i can't compain, how many people get to just chill out in Rome on their own. but im so ready for my own bed, my family, good food and NO MORE ITALIAN MEN! but i guess i can take this opporitunity to buy some more pope gear and maybe another knockoff purse!! anyone want a sweet charm with the popes face on it?
hmmmmmmmmmmm whatelsewhatelsewhatelse... ive done very little today other than study a little and paint my nails. i don't imagine that would be to interesting for all you wonderful readers. whom ever you may be.
i want to be home right now. damn. i love it here, don't get me wrong, but it hits a certain point where you just want to be able to do nothing at all. or to not have to worry about anyhting going wrong.
well i should go get some more work done. but i will try to post more tmro!
Friday, August 24, 2007
italy has way more class
look at that place, there is a marble staircase going to the mcdonalds in Rome. they do everything better. except for apples, they have icky apples here.
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