Art History/Reflections/Anna

Anna's Reflections'

23 August 2007 -I chose the Van Gogh Museum because I remember studying Van Gogh when I was in elementary school. I remember liking his style of art, and I could easily spot one of his pieces in museum.

-This museum has quite a lot of works of Van Gogh, considering that it is his museum, so I think it might be hard to find a piece of artwork that is not in here.

-As I was looking through Art Store, I realized that there were a lot of black and white drawings, most of which were not included in the Van Gogh museum.

-However, I have found a drawing that I like, however, I cannot find where it is located.

-I came across a website that helped me find a sketch that is not in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

-I came across a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother that said he wanted to start some sketches.

-I am going to have to switch pictures b/c the one I want I cannot copy. So, I have decided to switch to another drawing, held in the Washtingon Museum.

September 7, 2007: I think I ended liking the outcome of my project, and today, I am about to start the new project.

I started looking through Richard Serra's work, and much of it really does not seem like art to me. I know he is supposed to be a really acclaimed sculptor, but it just seems like he is sticking together a box or a rod or something and callling it art.

I did find out that there is a special genre of art for art like Serra's. It was kind of cool to learn tbat there were other people who did work just like Serra.

September 9: -So I did more research on Serra today, and I started to like some of his pieces more. His big sculptures in the garden are really cool and really interesting. However, I still do not like some of his pieces with pipes and lead squares.

September 12: -Our discussion was super helpful. At the beginning, I was a big skeptic on Serra's work, but now, I am thoroughly convinced that was Serra is doing is art. I understand his concepts of light and space, and I think that he is a very talented artist.

September 13: I am really glad that I did this project. I think I did a pretty good job and I gained a whole new understanding for art, especially art like this. I know a lot more about art, now, and have a much more open mind.

September 17: My review of Serra's work was very positive and talked a lot about my journey to understand his work and in the end, my appreciation. The review we read today was very complicated to me. I did not understand what he was talking about a lot of the time, but I agreed with some of what he said. For example, the fact that you have to experience Serra's work to understand with was right on target, in my opinion. His review was probably a lot more in depth and a lot more accurate, because he probably saw the exhibit. However, I liked the outcome of my review, because I felt it portrayed a decent picture of my opinions of Serra and of his work.

Podcast Listening Reflection-September 19: I just finished listening to my podcasts, and they were pretty cool. One of them was a show that these two people did every week. I thought that was very neat. It would have been a lot more interesting to me if I had been more interested in the topics that the podcasts were on. Also, when we do our podcast, we have to make sure that the sound is good, because in one of my podcasts, the sound needed improvement.

September 21: We just finished writing our questions, and I am excited to ask him and to hear his answers. I think that it will help me understand him and his works more.

September 25: Today was really interesting, meeting with Mr. Anderson. I learned a lot and it was fascinating to hear his perspective on his works and the role his life had in his artwork. I am really excited about Wed. to ask him more questions.

Septmember 28: We met with Mr. Anderson again two days ago. It was a good experience to meet witb him and to learn about his works. However, I thought that it was going to be more informative. I felt that Mr. Anderson, many times, did not answer the question that was being asked. I was disappointed about that, but I did learn a lot. Then, we went to see the exhibit yesterday, and it was much cooler to see the photographs in real life. For example, I never really liked "Skidway Joe" until I saw it in real life. Then, I realized how cool the photograph was. The photographs are so much more powerful in real life.

October 8: Sona and I just finished finding our pictures of art with symbols in them. I was really reluctant to do this theme at first, becasue I thought that it was going to be really hard to have to research different symbols in different cultures. However, Sona and I found out really quickly that there are so many symbols in just everyday life that represent something. For example, the peace sign is really trivial, but it actually stands for something. I am glad that I chose this one, because I now realize that symbols don't necessarily have to be that extraordinary...they just could be simple things that mean something else. I think the final project is going to be really cool. However, at this point, I have no idea what I want my theme to be. None of the themes on the list really stood out to me, but I am going to keep thinking about it and possibly come up with a theme of my own.

October 10: After Sona and I presented today, I realized that Ms. Davis was right and that we probably should have chosen symbols in real art pictures and symbols that we could have gone much more in depth with. I think we were just trying to get the project done, so we did not really pay attention to the relevance of our symbols or where they came from. I thought it was interesting how Yeswanth pointed out how our symbols that we chose only derived from our side of the world...that was a really good point that I would never have thought about. I started to research more symbols, since we are going to re-do the project, and so far, I have found two that I think mean a lot more than the ones we presented today.

Symbols in Art Colossal Statue of Akhenaton This statue is a statue of Akhenaton, an Egyptian pharaoh from the New Kingdom, displays a very common symbol throughout Egyptian art – the beard. When statues or art were created in Egypt, the beard was depicted as either being straight or curved. If the beard was curved, it meant that the person was dead when the piece of art was constructed. If the beard was straight, it meant that the person was alive. Even as art changes throughout the different kingdoms in Egypt, the symbols of the beards stay the same.

Pendant Plaque This pendant was from the Byzantine culture and depicts Christian symbols, most significantly, the chi rho. Chi and rho are the first two letters of Jesus’ name the Greek alphabet. Supposedly, they are also the two letters that Emperor Constantine, the emperor to make Christianity the dominate religion in the Roman Empire, in a dream he had. To this day, the symbol of chi rho are significant in Christianity.

Attendant Saints The symbol of the halo is exhibited in this image. The halo has been used for centuries throughout many cultures. In Greece, Homer depicted heroes in battle with light shining around their heads, whereas in Rome,in means more along the lines of sainthood. In Christian art, the halo started with Jesus, who is usually only depicted with a halo after he was baptized by John. Then, however, the halo spread to be used for saints or people of holy nature. The bigger the halo, the more significant the person. Wikipedia says that it represents "the light of divine grace". This symbol has been used for centuries and can still be seen today in stained glass windows and in other Christian images.

Sources: Art Store ''Halo. Religious Iconography.'' 2007. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. 11 October 2007. .

October 11 I re-did my symbol project, and I think I understand better what Ms. Davis was trying to get us to do with this project. I still feel as if I could have gone more in depth with more research and more time. I am starting to get excited about our project and undercovering the knowledge in order to create our museums.

October 11 I just posted my questions about the symbols in art. I don't know if I want to stick with this topic, but I feel like these questions would get me heading in the right direction if I did stay with this topic. However, I probably could brainstorm even more to come up with questions that could go even deeper into the topic.

October 20 Wow! It feels like forever since I last posted a reflection! We started our research on Thursday...our only class of the week :(...and I am kind of getting really scared about the project. Sona and I decided to switch topics to Race, Class, and Gender, yet as I have started to do research, I have a feeling that this is going to be much harder than I expected.  I spent the entire class on Thurday looking for images, and I did not find a single one.  I think it is going to be really hard to use Art Store on this particular topic without doing prior research.  That kind of stinks, becuase before I was just able to type in a topic and images fitting my topic would come up.  So now, I am not sure where to start.  I guess during class on Monday, I am going to go research different cultures and the roles of race, class, and gender in those cultures.  Hopefully, that will get me somewhere, so I can find some images!

October 22 After class today, I feel a lot better. I think that a lot of people were feeling sort of the same way I was (a little frightened/frazzled) at the beginning of class today, but I know I think I have started to get a handle on everything. I went back on Art Store and did really generic searches and started to read the descriptions to see if they had anything to do with my topic. Right now, I am just trying to find images. Once a get a bunch more, I will go back and do further research on each of the pieces I have gotten. Probably half of them will have nothing to do with my theme, but I think it is much better to have way too many images than way too little. I am really looking forward to uncovering really cool tidbits of info about my pieces and assembling my museum. Right now, we are just doing the tedious prep work that has to be done.

October 25 Today, Mrs. Rich did her presentation. I found it to be really interesting, especially since I did not know at all what a fiber artist was before today. It blew my mind how people would have the patience and the drive to do what some of those people do. I am still a little nervous about our project, especially with connecting it to a theme. Our topic is so broad that I am not sure if we will be able to a pull a theme together for the whole exhibit. I am also really scared that it is going to be really challenging to come up with a theme that can tie in all of our peices, especially since we have to have works from different types of art.

October 27 I am really frustrated at right now, because I feel like I am getting nowhere during class and that I have so much work to do. I am just not sure where to start or how to go about finding images, especially since race is such a broad topic.

October 31 After class today, I feel a lot better about the project. I got a lot more images today, and with both Sona's and my images, we have around 50. I have a few pieces that I LOVE and that I cannot wait to research more and to definitely put in my museum. I am definitely getting much more excited at the thought of our museum!