Art History/Reflections/Kristen and Elizabeth

Kristen: is in bold

Elizabeth: is in regular

October 10th,2007

What a day we had today. I was feeling really frustrated because I was sure that Elizabeth and I had such a great symbol for our project and it just got blown out of the water because of stupid Art store not functioning on the computer. To look for things referring to immortality and mortality, well I guess you'd have to start using synonymous to both of the words. I chose the topic because there is such a defining line between the two topics and I want that to be evident in our museum. That isn't too much to ask is it?

October 11th,2007

I was happy I got to present my extra thing on Venus today! I thought it was a really good thing to bring up since I know lots of people had seen it before. If we can find something like that, can't we find more things on our theme? I personally am NOT abandoning it!

November 1st, 2007

Well, seeing as both Elizabeth and I both have seperate accounts on Artstor, I've picked out 5 from the groupings that I really liked and want to use and she's picked out her 5. Now we just need to split down to the finals and see which pictures have the most strengths and will be best for us to present. I'm excited, I know ours are really good and all we need now is background information. We could possibly start our project today...

November 1, 2007 (Elizabeth): I really feel like I had a breakthrough today during class. As Kristen and I decided to each choose 5 pictures to present, I felt the need to research further. One of my pieces that I am very excited about is called "Heart Scarab of Hatnofer." Covered in hyroglyphics, this interesting piece was placed over the heart of the mummy (and as the Egyptians believed, the heart of the spirit.) My research began by taking a closer look at the piece. This obviously didn't work because I can't read hyroglypgics. After that I looked in the introduction. It mentioned the inscription was from the "book of the dead." After a deep search, and by googling Hatnofer, I found the passage. Egyptian belief of guarding the heart is a belief that I find to be most interesting...and I completely agree. A spirit should always be with you. Today I learned that by researching with other sources, you can find out handy information needed to better understand the piece you are observing. This project is a great idea, but I am concerned that we still don't have enough pieces yet...hopefully that will change. Right now, I am happy with the progress that we have made and the realizations and conclusions (to better understand art and why it is created) that comes hand and hand.

November 7th, 2007

I thought it was really interesting when Ms. Davis was talking about Japan and how things go there. I would have never expected that kids are the ones who clean the schools! But they probably do it at home as well, clean up after themselves, so I doubt any of the Japanese kids are lazy like us Americans -_-. Me and Sona were talking afterwards about how it really would be obvious to spot an American tourist in Japan if you had the chance. Try taking a bunch of rowdy kids over there and see what happens XD.

November 8th, 2007

I'm kind of dissapointed with myself today, because I feel I could have done a better job with that powerpoint. The thing is, I don't know where our thread is connecting our pictures and we have such little time. I really liked the picture with Bassus and Napoleon awakening to Immortality, I thought those were original good pieces. It's just that I don't always want to do the Egyptians when it comes to Immortality and Mortality. I don't want to fall where the lines cross because that's just it, they don't cross. You either die or you live. I think the information on Matthew Brady (I think that's his name) was EXTREMELY helpful though. That's more of what I'd see as mortality, at people seeing dead bodies on a field and being horrified at the sheer loss of life. You can capture more emotion with a photograph, so I'm definately looking that up.

November 15, 2007: (Elizabeth) Wow. I havent reflected in a while. I was having a few doubts about stringing our project together. After meeting with Mr. Bishop & Mrs. Davis, I learned that we don't have to worry about having a continual "thread" running through our pieces. This was an INCREDIBLE relief. Also, I found it very helpful to have one on one conferences because all of the teachers are so incredibly helpful. We got some ideas like researching Matthew Brady, as well as some pieces like "The Third of May." We went on Artstor yesterday and had trouble finding the requested pieces....we probably spelled them wrong. Anna and Sona mentioned that they put their pieces in a powerpoint to see how they look in a collection. This was such a good idea. We discussed the arrangement of our pieces with Mrs. Davis & Mr. Bishop yesterday and I think that we are going to arrange them from mortality to immortality. For example we may start with the Matthew Brady piece (I believe its something like The Battle of Antietam) which is a photograph of DEAD soldiers. This picture is probably the most powerful in the bunch. Anyway, since this picture respresents death, we will begin with it to create something like a "story" with our pictures. (How someone goes from being a mortal, to being immortal, or the "journey to the afterlife.) Either way after discussing the subject matter together we agreed that this would connect all of our pieces and we would know which ones were strong, and which ones to weed out. We were thinking of ending with the piece the Arcadian Sheperds, because like we discussed in class, the "sheperds" we not watching over their dead friend, but infact they were envying their friends achievement of immortality. The last picture (if we can find one that is broad and not to blatant) would be something relating to heaven or an angel...I will ask Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Barker, or Mr. Bishop about any ideas. This picture would symbalize the achievement of immortality, and show the person looking down upon the earth. I just talked to Mrs. Barker about this picture and she believes that it would need to be a broad picture that can be explained. A picture that I am very excited about is one that Alison showed me yesterday. It is the Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. This painting would fit into our theme because it has three panels that show how mankind, originally immortal, sinned and lost that privelidge. It also shows the path to descruction. The book I got the picture in (the big art history book) describes the picture as "Illustrating the origin, indulgence, and punishment, of sin." It does just that. The last pannel of the tryptich, is a painting of hell, the most disturbing picture I have probably ever seen. The other two show the course to hell. The first painting, on the left, represents the Garden of Eden. It represents the world before sin. The second painting, in the center, represents the world before the flood (after the first sin, this is the fall of makind.) Something that I found very interesting about this piece is the motive and belief of the artist, Bosch. Bosch, an artist in the Italian Renaissance, opposed the Italian belief that was expressed by other artists of that time. The other Italian artists believed in representing the "beauty of life" in their paintings and works, while Bosch represented the "fraility and wickedness of mankind." I find it very interesting that he views so strongly against the common belief, and would like to do some more research to find out why. (Could this have been influenced in his upbringing?) Off to do work, but while I'm thinking about it, we have found the most pictures with the most substance today during class in the books. I will reflect about them when we have gathered more information.

November 19th,2007

So my computer was dead as a doorknob but somehow I was succesfully able to bring a list together. I'm still a little iffy on Otto Dix's work specifically because I cannot find the image that I scanned and I have yet to find the book so I assume I will be asking Ms. Barker for help. Our images and the depth centered around them is SO good though. I feel that I can connect to almost every piece and that is definitely reassuring. Besides that, Elizabeth and I are working really well together and I'm not as nervous now about our final product.

November 27th,2007

I'm dying. Yep, this project is officially killing me with its omnipresent force in my life. How the heck are we going to even attempt to finish this? We haven't even started our paragraphs yet! I'm just stressing out, bigtime. I don't understand how I can juggle this massive workload by Friday. When I even attempt to try to think of the overload of work that I'm under just in this class I start to break out in a sweat. *Okay stop venting, venting done*. But we started today, Elizabeth's worked on the thesis and I'm putting in the pieces and piling on stuff for our summaries. We'll see how this all turns out in the end -_-.

November 28, 2007 (Elizabeth): I am in dyer need to reflect! Kristen and I have been working very hard on our project, but we feel pushed for time. I have written a very good summary for one of my paintings: "The Garden of Earthly Delights". It is written in almost a journalistic style...anyway, back on track: This project has really made me feel like a more intelligent person. I have noticed that lately it seems to be weaving throughout my other subjects. This project was a great idea, but it is also INCREDIBLY stressful for me. You see, I am one of those people that takes forever to write something because I revise it while Im writing it (...as I press the delete key...) and it takes me a while to write summaries that I feel comfortable with. Another problem that I have been facing is internet issues. No computer's internet in my house has been working lately, and when I get home every night at 7:30 from swimming and get the rest of my homework done, leaving time to dedicate to Art History it is usually 10, 11, 12 o-clock that I have to drive to my dad's office and work on it...which is making it hard to get things finished without being completely exhausted the next day. Besides that, I feel like we are doing a great job, and we really understand the subject. We have a creative way of organizing our works as a story...that almost gives it a "twist" making the project even more exciting. I should reflect more today, but at 11:07 on a school night, at my dad's office, I should probably be working on my summaries.

December 9, 2007 (Elizabeth): I am incredibly stressed. Originally I thought that nine weeks was too long to do this project. After all of this time, I feel like we could have used a little more time because we feel time crunched. I think that if you repeat the project next year, you could have more "check up" days and due dates. For example: 2 summaries are due monday, 2 summaries are due thursday....etc. This would prevent some stress from building up, and I also feel that it would keep us on track. On a happier note, I really like the Chinese book binding project we are doing. It really emphasises the fact that we are doing all of this project on our own. I think that once we are finished I will really grow to cherish the book that we made ourselves as well as the overall project, no matter how stressful it may be now. Im sorry that this reflection isnt as deep as it should be. I am having problems coming up with that kind of thinking when it comes down to the end of our project. I have completed summaries for: the heart scarab of hatnofer, the garden of earthly delights, immortality, the equestrian tomb, the unidentified service man, the arcadian shepards, and the roman sarcophagus. And have "revamped" or REdone the equestrian tomb summary and right now I am REdoing the thesis.

December 14th,2007

Wow, I can't believe it. We're done, we're actually done. Man, this whole process has been absolutely incredible. I can look back on my book and the things I did and be absolutely amazed. I really want to thank Mr. Bishop, and Ms. Barker. They both did an absolutely amazing job helping me and keeping me motivated. Also I really want to thank Ms.Davis for doing such a wonderful job really leading the class. It seems forever that I came in early in the semester unsure of exactly what was going on ^_^. I really hope more people participate in the course and I will highly encourage them to do so!

<3333 <-- Those are hearts just so you know :) Kristen