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Brooklyn Museum Part 2

Part 2: Soul of a Nation

The entire exhibit was so beautiful I wasn’t sure which Art piece to choose but when I finally saw, “Revolutionary” by Jarrell Wadsworth, I knew that this painting would be the piece I chose.

The painting is of a black Woman wearing what seems to be a uniform to fight in, with her fist clenched around a microphone or walkie talkie, and her mouth open wide.  The bullets on her suit seem to be made with colorful crayons.  I saw this as the woman using anything she has, even crayons, to fight for what she believes in. She may not have much but at least she has something.  There are so many words that its hard to read what’s written but if you focus on one spot you can see the one word, I believe the artist is trying to show that the amount of problems that she has is a lot and if you look at it from far you wont be able to focus and change it, but if you start by focusing on one place, at one word, change can start to happen. This painting brings change along with beauty.

I chose the painting because I like the message, and that from far away you can’t really tell that there are words but the closer you get the more you see.  I also really liked the meaning behind it and that it was quite obvious what it was.

Brooklyn Museum: Ancient World & Soul of a Nation

Before going on this trip to the Brooklyn Museum I was a little hesitant. I had not been there since elementary school and I thought it would be boring. However once I got to the museum and started going through the exhibits I found myself pleasantly surprised, I was enjoying my time and did not realize I had been there for a couple hours. I ended up really liking the experience and I felt inspired to create some art of my own. There were several pieces that touched me but here are the once I chose.

Part 1: Ancient World

The Ancient Egypt exhibit had plenty of interesting pieces some of which reminded me of things we went over in class. Some being fancy well detailed jars that held black eyeliner like discussed in class the description said it was used for both male and females to highlight the eyes, reduce sun glare, and repel flies. Many statues and artifacts were astounding as well but what stuck me the most was the Coffin of the Lady of the House, Weretwahset which was part of the exhibit called A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt. I chose this piece because I wasn’t aware that ancient Egyptian’s believed that after a woman’s death they had to temporarily turn into men in order to make rebirth possible. This was because ancient Egyptians believed that woman had a biological barrier to the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians thought that men created the fetus and passed it to the woman through intercourse thus rebirth was not possible for women in the afterlife. So what they did was temporarily turn women into men. They did this by having a priest recite spells using male pronouns and using colors that were for men. Formal analysis of the Coffin of the Lady of the House, Weretwahset color plays a big role as mentioned above. Here we can see that on the coffin the women has red skin her face, neck, arms and feet are all red. But in the cartonnage the women has yellow skin which represented the skin of a goddess made of gold showing her going back to being a woman. There are other colors as well her white dress, gold jewelry, black hair. There are some hieroglyphics. The coffin with red skin is bigger in scale than the car tonnage with yellow skin. There appears to be no empty space all very detailed. Some possible Egyptians gods are on the coffin as well. This relates to what we discussed in class for it represents the afterlife.

 

Part 2: Soul of a Nation

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black power is an exhibit that contains art work from 1958 – 1983. This exhibit focuses on the “complex work of Black artists who – at a time of dizzying political, social, and aesthetic revolution – produced some of the most innovative and electric art of the twentieth century.” (Brooklyn Museum) The description also mentions that these artworks were made “during a struggle of liberation” referring to systematic discrimination and racial violence of the 60s even though some advancements in Civil Rights had been made. The artwork that stuck me the most was Benny Andrews “Did the Bear Sit Under a Tree?” I chose this piece because of its incorporation of materials with oil paint. I was astounded by its meaning and how the materials added texture to the piece making it look three dimensional. Formal analysis there is a mixture of bright and dark colors in the painting. It can be seen in the shirt how it adds black and darker shades of green to create shadows and contrast. Within the shirt we can see there is real fabric beneath the oil paint. The mouth is made of a zipper adding a sense of expression to the face of disappointment. The flag is made of rolled up fabric adding three dimension which can also be seen o the nose. His fist are raised in anger towards the flag. The flag is also smaller in size compared to the man. The man also takes up most of the space, the main focus of the painting. Some semi straight lines can be seen in the arms and flag. Colors like red, blue, white, grey, green, brown, back can be seen. This relates to the exhibit because the author is reflecting on the Civil Rights protests in the 60s and states “It is a Black person who is shaking his fist at the very thing that is supposed to be protecting him [the flag] and the he’s operating under.”

Brooklyn Museum Assignment Part 1

Part One: Ancient World

The piece of art I chose was the “Painted Coffin Interior”.  It was the inside bottom of the coffin where an Egyptian King would be buried on top of, after being mummified.  What originally drew me to observe the piece were the colors used.  It was the only art in the room that had any color, and I love colors.

I believe the painting done was specific towards the King that was buried there.  It tell the story of his life and the things he accomplished.  The biggest figure in the center of the painting is the King of the dead, Osiris, due to hieratic scale, it makes sense that he is four time the size of the other figures, since the who;e point of the painting is for death.  The mummy would be laid on top of it, so the deceased could be associated with the King, who was reborn in the afterlife.

The birds with heads are called ba-soul.  They are the part of the soul that can travel between living world and the death world.  It was believed that only kings had these souls, so the ba-souls on the top registers were previous kings.

There are two figures holding Osiris up, Anubis and Horus.  Anubis (on the left), is a God who watches over the dead.  He was the God that embalmed Osiris after he died.  Horus (on the right) was the symbol of  kingship over Egypt.

The circles on the top of the painting, I believe, are there to show the circle of life.  Even though the King’s human life is over his soul continues on in the after life, so there are more than one circle; the soul goes on.

Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum has many collections that one can view. These collections consist of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart, One: Do Ho Suh, Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection, Something to Say: Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, Deborah Kass, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Hank Willis Thomas, Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,Rob Wynne: FLOAT, Infinite Blue, The Brooklyn Della Robbia, Arts of Korea, American Art, A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt, European Art,Ancient Egyptian Art, Assyrian Art, The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, Decorative Arts and Period Rooms, Visible Storage ▪ Study Center, Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas, Williamsburg Murals: A Rediscovery and Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden. The collection that piqued my interest the most is Arts of Korea.  

The Pair of Boy Attendants, Korea Joseon Dynasty is an art piece that stood out to me. This art piece The Pair of Boy Attendants, Korea Joseon Dynasty has soft lines, bright colors, and is a three dimensional statue.  The Pair of Boy Attendants, Korea Joseon Dynasty are usually called dongjas. These dongjas would be placed at buddist sculpture dieties to show that the donjgas are bringing gifts. While one of the boys is carrying a turtle the other boy is assumed to be carrying a tray of food. The colors primarily used in the sculptures are very light although if you look at the head and the feet they are a dark color. This contrasts with the white skin. The clothing on the statue is very detailed. When you look on the sleeve you can see the creases of the top, which makes it seem like that the shirt was a little too long or baggy. On the statue it’s very hard to see the turtle. It seems to blend in with the boys top. While the other boys tray does not blend in with his top that significantly it is the same color as the boys top. Both of the boys have very straight lines on their hands where you can see their fingers. The two boys have very faint curved eyebrow lines and ruby red lips which contrasts against their pale skin. 

In the collection Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power the art piece that captured my attention the most is “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.” The reason that this art piece captured my attention is that when you closely look in the back there is Aunt Jemima who is the cover on nowadays pancake syrup. The painting consists of warm earthy tones in which each element of color varies and contrasts with each other. The woman with the very dark hues is shown bigger than everyone else.  In contrast to the big size the woman around her apron has a post card which shows a black lady holding a white baby. These colors contrast each other which makes the baby stand out. Jemima on one hand is holding a broom and on the other she’s holding a rifle. There are no soft lines in this painting rather it seems like the piece is just blobbed there.  The floor is white which brings out the earthy tones in the painting.  The larger Aunt Jemima has round eyes that are bulging out of her head while the red lip goes with the red dress.  

 

Brooklyn Museum Part 1 And Part 2

Part 1, Ancient Egyptian Exhibit:
When I walked into the Brooklyn Museum and went to the Ancient Egyptian Exhibit located on the third floor, I saw many interesting artifacts and ancient pieces of art work that had caught my attention. One thing that stood out for me and caught my eye when I was looking around the Ancient Egyptian Exhibit in the Brooklyn Museum was the Wreath. The Wreath was on display and it was a wreath made out of gold. It was a golden crown like ring surrounded with leaves and flowers which made it look like the wreath was a golden vine that was formed into a ring to fit onto someones head. The golden Wreath is said to have been from the Ptolemaic Period, circa third to second century B.C.E and a Gift of George D. Pratt. The golden Wreath is described to be “Formed to resemble flowers and leaves to crown athletic victors throughout the ancient Greek World.” These wreaths were used at lavish dinner parties and worn by the guests in the Egyptian capital, Alexandria, as explained by Athenaeus of Nitocris an Egyptian born Greek writer. The Wreath caught my eye because it had made me confused at first since I was visiting the Ancient Egyptian Exhibit and something Ancient Greek was among the collection.

Part 2, Soul of a Nation:
When visiting the Soul of a Nation located on the fifth floor in the Brooklyn Museum, there were many art pieces in the exhibit that could be related to modern art unlike the Ancient Egyptian Exhibit. The piece that stood out the most for me when seeing all the art works representing black power and the civil rights movement was the sculpture art piece Black Unity, 1968 by Elizabeth Catlett. I chose this piece because it can be related to society today with police shooting black people and black people raising their fists in the air yelling black lives matter. Out of all the pieces in the museum, the art piece Black Unity is like the center piece and relates to the rest of the artworks on display due to it being so meaningful in the era of the civil rights movement and also modern society. The piece seems to be made out of wood because of the wood grain look with a dark brown finish making the sculpture look smooth and waxy. The art piece is formed into the shape of a hand making a fist and the dark brown wood color represents a black person, so the sculpture must represent a black person holding up their fist. The dark brown wood is a mahogany which is a straight grained reddish brown wood which depicts the skin color. Visiting the Brooklyn Museum has been an amazing and enlightening experience which allowed me to learn more about both Ancient Egyptian Art and society and Black Art and Culture and I would definitely go back again with family or friends to see the exhibits again to learn more.

Unit 1 Summary

We have come to the end of Unit 1, time really does fly. In unit one we learned about critical pedagogy and formal analysis. To recap Pedagogy of the Oppressed was a book written by Paulo Freire in which he discusses the flaws in the education system and proposes the use of critical pedagogy. One of the flaws Paulo Freire explained was the Banking Model. In which students were viewed as empty containers that were filled by teachers who had all the power and left little to no critical thinking, thus encouraging critical pedagogy. This unit also discussed formal analysis. Which is a method used to interpret art by questioning and closely examining the physical piece of art through the different components of formal analysis. The different components are color, line, scale, space, and mass. The overall use of these elements is called composition. Although these are two separate topics in a sense they relate to each other. Both critical pedagogy and formal analysis encourage you to thoroughly examine thing and to think critically. I can see how formal analysis has helped me. Before when looking at an image, questions would pop into my mind however now I think more of it and I pay closer attention to details.

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Blog #7 Brooklyn Museum-Soul of a Nation

Although, I was anticipating all of the works I would encounter at the Brooklyn Museum, I was most interested and excited to explore the Soul of a Nation exhibit. This is an exhibit that now holds a special place in my heart after experiencing it and getting to see the work of many Black artists and the different depictions of blackness across the US (NY, Chicago, L.A.). One of my favorite parts was all of the work depicting the Black Panthers and their movement. I’ve always had a fascination with the Black Panthers movement because of the stories my dad would tell about them and things he experienced growing up in the era of their movement.

Although, this part of the exhibit was something I was increasingly interested in, I found myself instantly drawn to this painting of the American Flag, named American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding, 1967 by Faith Ringgold. I went back to this piece about three times, each time finding some new meaning and new emotion in regards to it. I chose to post this piece because in this recent political climate and over the past few years, more and more people have become vocal about the oppression faced by Black people everyday. In this work, it depicts that in America we all stand united and in solidarity, but in reality once you look beyond this stance it can be seen that that isn’t the truth. The oppression of Blacks had never diminished and as said previously, can still be seen today. This piece relates to the rest of the exhibit because the main focuses of it are discrimination and oppression, and the Civil Rights Movement that fixated on fixing these problems. This piece embodies both discrimination and oppression of Blacks, even though we are all given these rights under the Constitution and should be united from it, African Americans had a small chance at escaping oppression and discrimination. The colors of this work are vivid and saturated, which instantly draws your eyes to it and makes you begin analyzing it. Also, shading and shadowing are used to clearly show facial features. The color that draws your eyes in the most is the red, which is used for the stripes on the flag as well as the blood that is dripping from those stripes, once again showing not only emotional pain, but physical pain.

Unit 1 Summary

Image result for checkUnit 1 covered basic learning styles and systems of analysis that are conducted in the study of art.  To truly appreciate art, a student should be a part of a classroom that engages in critical pedagogy, so that everyone in the classroom can truly learn together.  Friere’s learning style leads to students being more active and gaining more independence than the classic learning style.  This increased engagement leads to art students feeling more connected to the education they’re getting and develop more of a passion and memory for the concepts.  An example of a concept that can be retained faster from this learning style is formal analysis.  Formal analysis is the study of a work of art by breaking down and identifying its physical, historical, and meaningful features.  Although it is presented in a very formal way, this skill should become second nature to an art student who is tasked with the duty of analyzing art.  Practice and input from this student through the critical pedagogy system will develop this second nature at a fast rate within the individual.  I’m refreshed to know that I am learning within a classroom where I can be treated as an equal and asked to analyze all of the different ways art is meant to effect its audience.  Being treated as lesser and only analyzing art through one lens would become boring and disinteresting.

Brooklyn Museum Assignment

Upon walking into the Brooklyn Museum, which by the way was free with my BC Id, I was overwhelmed with the amount of artwork on display. Having never visited the Brooklyn Museum I was pleasantly surprised to find such interesting exhibits. I especially enjoyed those of the Egyptian galleries and Soul of a Nation. Using what I have learned, I had a whole new perspective on viewing art.

 One specific piece of art really stuck out to me when visiting the Museum. A statue of a woman whose asking was red skin and what seemed like male facial features. Before reading the brief description of the artwork I began to use formal analysis to determine the different elements of the piece.  The statue had a coffin like shape and was covered in hieroglyphics. I assumed that the coffin like statue was telling the story of some kind of after life of whomever the woman was. Using previous knowledge of the Egyptians great interest in the afterlife, I came to the conclusion that the writing has to do with the woman’s journey. After creating my own ideas of the artwork I of course read the description of the piece. The statue indeed was a coffin of a woman and the writing was the story of how a priest transformed the woman into a male so that she could have the ability to the idea of rebirth. Ancient Egyptians believed that a male was necessary for the process of birth and rebirth. Formal analysis help me understand the complexities of the piece and how to full appreciate its value much better than I did before.

My most enjoyable experience at the Brooklyn Museum was the Soul of a Nation exhibit.  As much as I enjoyed the ancient world art the Soul exhibit was more of my style. As I entered the room I was pleased to see the many beautiful and moving images inside. The artwork that caught my attention immediately was that of Carolyn Lawrence Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free. The reason I chose this piece was for its vibrant vivid colors and detailed lines of the people within the picture. The different elements used to describe its meaning, it was truly and eye catcher. The representation of the children laughing,playing and playing music was so peaceful and innocent. Using from what is going on in today’s world I see how the artist is trying to make the point that no matter what color the children are just children. They are peaceful and bring peace to those who protect and observe. I am in awe of the beauty that this artwork brings in besides the actual colors. It was really one of my favorites.

My experience at the Brooklyn Museum was one of many surprises. Before coming I had no expectations and had no idea that I was going to enjoy it so much. The pieces I observed showed me the more meaningful side of art. How using simply paint and clay could impact and tell such detailed stories using zero words. Using what we learned has deeply changed how I now view and understand art. It has given me a new perspective on art and I am forever grateful it did.

Blog #6: Brooklyn Museum-Ancient World

For this assignment, I was very excited to visit the Brooklyn Museum because I live right in Crown Heights and have yet to be able to visit. The museum had a beautiful layout and so many pieces that caused me to be in awe the entire time. Once I finally reached the Ancient World section on the third floor, I found myself remembering and thinking about all of the things we have learned about in class regarding Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, and beginning to analyze all of the wonderful works that were displayed. Upon my way out towards the stairs, I stumbled upon the Assyrian Palace Reliefs that all had amazing and intricate details that I became more appreciative of when I saw them in person. I thought the placement of the reliefs near the entrance/exit stairs was very telling as to what they are and their purpose because when you reach the beginning of the exhibit, it explains that these reliefs would be seen at the entrances of Assyrian palaces to “overwhelm” visitors. I remember discussing this in class when we learned of the many figures that would be used to showcase power and attempt to frighten visitors. The relief I found myself in complete awe of was the Relief with Two Registers that came from the Neo-Assyrian Period under the rule of Ashur-nasir-pal II. In doing formal analysis, the first thing I became aware of was the complete symmetry of the two registers. Although they are different characters, they are complete mirror images of one another, even down to the piece that the figures are holding/touching which I later found out was the sacred tree. Also, in doing formal analysis one can take note of the depth of the lines that were used, in some places of the register, both top and bottom, there are certain parts that have deeper lines and others that have more shallow lines. The shallow lines seemed to be used for parts that were not the main focus of the relief, such as clothes; and the deeper lines were used to enhance/showcase detail such as the scared tree of or the wings of the mythical creature and the genie. I also noted that unlike some of the registers we viewed in class, there did not seem to be a hierarchy and instead they were equal to show their equal importance and meaning.