Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Art - bear witness ExampleIt was hard to tell the reaction of other(a)s because all conversations were held to a whisper. The staff at the museum consists of a film director and curators that specialize in their areas of expertise. In addition to the professional staff the museum hires college students trained to answer questions. While I viewed a great amount of exhibits at the museum, the exhibit that I was to the highest degree drawn to was themed around impressionist ruse about Italy form the 19th century. In addition to being highly creative personic, the exhibit present an almost virtual experience of Italy. An added element of was that rather than being directly from Italian workmans, the art was created by artists with an outside impression of Italy. In these regards, I believe the work that was presented had a more highly romanticized quality than it would had the artists been natively born in Italy. I contribute this to the fact that when individuals visit Italy t hey tend to visit tourist attractions and inquire at the scenery, rather than growing cynical at the historical nature of the country. The work I was most drawn to was Robert Duncansons A Dream of Italy. The painting was created in 1865 in Montreal after the artist visited Italy. The artist was the descendent of former slaves, and he had migrated to Cincinnati for a time where there was a vibrant art socialisation and only moved to Montreal to escape the racial strife brought on by the Civil War. The paintings genre is a decorate work. The painting is Oil on canvas. It is symmetrical in that the mountain and shoetree protruding from the left of the landscape balance out the Italian villa picture on the right. The painting is tumesce orchestrated in its depiction of an idealized Italian landscape. In great part Duncanson implements muted discolour and browns to illustrate the landscape in the foreground, while an ethereal blue depicts the distant scenery. The artist utilizes sh arp define distinctions in creating a dynamic contrast between the fore-grounded scenery and the distant mountain background. In this respect, the artist is successful in creating a harmonious effect. The painting seems directly influenced by similar historical landscape works, and has been noted as having similar qualities to Albert Bierstadts Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, which was created the same year. I was attracted to the work some(prenominal) by its vision of an idealized Italy, which I believe is its greatest tasteful strength, and its overriding aesthetic control condition of landscape. From a contemporary perspective some individuals may criticize the painting as being about mundane, as such landscapes have become cliche in the contemporary environment that has been inundated by graphic depictions. In this sense its aesthetic value as an entirely unique work of art is diminished, however its artistic mastery remains uncontested. Its ultimate cultural sign ificance may be more closely aligned with Duncansons personal background as a descendent of slaves who created the work in exile during the Civil War, than as a unique artistic object. In comparing this work to other works, one of the works from the course that most sticks out in my mind is Monets Sunrise. When considering Duncansons A Dream of Italy in regards to Monets work, I recognize there are a clutch of similarities and differences. While both paintings consider the nature of an idealic scenery the way they express this imagery through artistic measures is strikingly different. In Duncanson