Artists have always been entranced by nature and its elements, from the earliest images of the cave paintings to the most modern sculpture of Cloud City, they have observed the world as elemental and meaningful. The works below are all in the Met in New York City.
Your mission is to find six (or more) of these images and write a journal entry which identifies the work, the artist (f known), its medium and any other information found at the museum. What element(s) does the work suggest to you? Include a paragraph in your entry playing with the connection between the image and our readings in class.
OK, we simply ran out of time to engage in this activity. I would be interested in comments from the class: would this have been worthwhile? A fun and interesting trip?
I think this trip would have been worth wile. We would have gotten to see each of the artist’s depictions or views crafted into a beautiful piece. For example i love the picture with the head of half man and half skull. That can resemble heaven and hell/ light and shadow. The human portion resembles light or heaven due to the fact that the human side looks like jesus in my opinion, and the skull half resembles death which can resemble hell or shadow. Each person has their own view and interpretation on art which makes each piece so unique!! Artists as well as sculptors have one idea in mind then it can totally change in the progress of the work and the atrist’s own interpretation could be a totally different view than mine. That is why it would have been a great trip, to see everyone’s interpretation of these pieces as well as others. Also to connect the pieces to the elements as well as the readings.
We could definitely organize a group to attend if there is interest. It would be a lovely thing to do in December.
I know that I completely agree with Nick…I would love to go into the city to the Met because it’s one of my favorite places. The stained glass painting (Autumn Landscape) is actually one of my favorite pieces of all time and every time I go, I find myself being pulled back to that spot without even realizing where I’m going! I think it could be an amazing trip in order to see everyone’s interpretations of artists that incorporate the elements into their works or even just to go and experience how different pieces of art can effect people in many ways. I definitely think we should bring this up in class.