Darius Bonds Museum visit

“Man with a pipe” is a painting by Pablo Picasso on display at the
Kimbell Art Museum. The overwhelming element that is present is
Picasso’s use of straight lines to show objects that normally don’t have
straight lines. At first glance, the painting looks like a brown
Christmas tree against a dark brown background. After closer inspection,
the subtle shape of a man appears. Strangely, even with a detailed
inspection, few additional details of the man seem to appear. The three
major features that stand out are his eye, nose, and pipe, which are all
round and located in a straight line. The only other object that I think
I can make out is a sheet of white paper under the man’s right hand. And
the sheet of paper is about the only thing that has a light color in
this painting. The color of the entire scene is extremely dark, not as
in evil, but more like a quiet study room. With this painting containing
so many straight lines and being almost devoid of curves that are
pointing in the same direction, this painting is incredibly flat and
geometric. The shape of the man almost takes up the entire painting
makes me think that he is either quite boring or tired.

Deborah Doherty museum visit

CHOPINE'S

The Chopines (a type of woman’s platform shoes) are ancient foot ware which date back
to the 1400’s. These high platform shoes came into fashion in Venice, Italy in the
sixteenth century. The chopines have an unusual yet exquisite look. At the first glance of
the chopines on exhibit, they looked rather spooky with a mask shaped face and a body
with feet. It looked similar to a face of a turtle or perhaps a dinosaur. The chopines,
featured at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, have a face-like front with what looks
to be two big, square shaped, black eyes and a smaller oval, pointed shaped, black nose,
a raised, wide fore-head, a raised, smooth black body and two wide, sloped, oval feet.
Made of leather, silk, and wood these awkward yet practical shoes served to protect
women’s feet from getting wet or dirty on the unpaved or muddy streets. These beautiful
shoes also proved to signal a woman’s elevated social status, just as expensive jewelry
and clothing would. The light beige color, decorated with stamped and pierced designs,
are elegant to the eye. The small pierced designs on the shoes look to have been a very
difficult task for the sculpture. The minute holes in the design, while it is not known as to
the tool used, had to be a monotonous, time consuming experience for the maker. The
double-horizontal lines which enhance the round circles of pattern across the shoes are
the focal point of the design. The vertical lines which flow down, with pin-hole shapes,
slope into a triangular fashion to form another magnificent design of the shoe to which
the eye is focused. To accomplish these spectacular shapes and designs with the use of
leather as the material, one could only imagine the extreme difficulty in the task. These
thick-soled, open-backed, raised shoes, sometimes as much as twenty inches high, were
also worn by courtesans in the 1600’s to establish a highly visible public profile. The
chopines featured curved heels, constructed of cork and covered with red-dyed leather
or fabric. The soles were made of wood, called pattens, which were attached to the
bottom of fragile and expensive shoes. The height of the platforms made it almost
impossible for the wearer to stand on their own; they were generally accompanied by an
attendant for assistance. Chopines were usually put on with the help of two servants.
Due to the height, shape, and awkwardness of the shoes, women only wore them to go
out in public. They also caused poor health to the feet, ankles, and lower legs of the
majority of women who wore them. The shoes are three-dimensional sculptures in the
round, which are volumetric in shape, and smooth to the touch. The beauty of the
chopines is enhanced as the reflections of the light gleam on the small pompoms of silk
floss. It was intriguing to learn that high-heeled shoes existed so long ago. Upon
examining the chopines, they are very similar to some high-heeled shoes of today. The
inventors of the chopines paved the way for the high-heeled boots and shoes today. I’m
thankful for the inventors because of them many women today, including myself, get to
enjoy their so called “hoochie mama” leather boots and high-heeled shoes.

Lyssa museum visit

Lyssa Dennis: Museum Visit
For this project, I visited the Dallas Museum of Art and simply had to analyze this paiting; Thomas Sully’s Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire (1843). I was originally drawn to this piece because of the subject matter; Cinderella. This painting depicts the heroine well. She has a very gentle look about her; and even though she’s dressed very simply, she has a certain unavoidable beauty.
One of the first noticeable characteristics of this painting is the dark line (the edge of the fireplace) separating Cinderella from her step-sisters. This line not only frames Cinderella, but both physically and metaphorically separates Cinderella from her sisters. They’re distant, far away, and looking at themselves while Cinderella is focused on a kitten, something far more dignified. The only shapes are those of the people, the cat, and the belongings around the fireplace. Aside from the edge of the fireplace, however, most everything has a very rounded quality; the pot, the arch of the fireplace’s hearth, and the people. It’s aesthetically easy to look at. There is a relatively large amount of empty space, with the wall of the fireplace particularly, however it is rather dark in contrast to the figure of Cinderella. Depth is easily depicted by the distance of the step-sisters; they’re lighter, smaller, and easily in another room of the estate. Light is an interesting subject in this piece. There is light coming from the fireplace, which gives Cinderella’s frame more contrast, the light for the sisters is coming from another room, but Cinderella is obviously lit as well; most likely from a window in the kitchen. The colors are all mostly browns, beiges, and yellows. These are soothing colors, which falls in line with the characteristics of fairy tales; everything is light, comforting, and easy to look at. The step-sisters have pinkish and reddish tones, which is different from the rest of the scene, another way to separate them. The texture is that of a painting, normal brushstrokes and patterns implied.
The balance of the piece is predominantly of the large blank fireplace wall which matches the large focal point of Cinderella, a curved, diagonal line (the line of Cinderella’s back) separates them, which could almost lend itself to a yin-yang idea; dark and light. Emphasis is on Cinderella. She is the first thing you notice, and for a moment, it’s just a pretty picture of a girl with a kitten, then the artist gives the viewer a surprise as you notice the step-sisters in the background and suddenly the girl goes from normal kitchen girl to classic fairy tale heroine. It’s one of the reasons I like the painting so much. The rhythm of the piece is gentle. The soft edges and soft colors are easy to approach. The most repetitions exists in the flowing lines of Cinderella’s dress, the dresses of the sisters, and the arch of the fireplace.
The painting (as a medium) doesn’t have any characteristics that differentiate it from another painting. The paint doesn’t have any patterns or strange shapes. The painting has most likely lost a bit of its original color and contrast, but that’s what happens overtime. It’s simple, and easy; which falls in line with the personality of fairy tales.

Jason Fanning museum visit

I visited the Kimbell Art Museum and found Paul Cézanne’s 1895 work, Maison Maria with a View of Château Noir. The piece itself is an oil on canvas painting measuring 65cm by 81cm. Cézanne employs short, emphatic brushstrokes in order to convey a sense of immediacy with his work. The various sections of the painting – the building, road, landscape, and sky, all are consistent in direction of strokes amongst themselves, but are often opposed to the areas around them. The strokes utilized to paint the sky begin at the upper left and descend to the bottom right, while those of the lane begin at the bottom left and jut upward to the right. This separates the painting much more distinctly when viewed closely, giving a strangely disorienting sensation of viewing the scene through a bird’s eyes while it swoops over the lane on an apparent path up and over the building in the center. On the outskirts of the piece, more and more blank splotches of canvas appear, sending the eye to the center of the canvas. The swirling effect of these opposed brush strokes lends the painting a slightly hazy, surreal effect, as if the world is slightly tilted to the left.
The hues are shifted into a much more vibrant palette than in real life, giving the scene a vivid intensity. The sky, building, and presumably the lane are all fairly realistic – though excessively vibrant – in color, while the trees are made of a series of red, blue, and violet brush strokes, some of which appear to have been made by a palette knife. The lines of the painting tend to be fairly linear and bring the eye’s focus to the building. In seeing the painting up close, however, the building seems to be an afterthought of sorts, as the landscape, particular the grasses at the right and the area around the rocky patch just in front of the building appear to have demanded most of Cézanne’s attention.
The rhythmic sense generated by the curving opposition of color and brushstrokes creates a sense of movement and life, as mentioned earlier with the example of the flying bird’s eye view. I felt a slight sense of vertigo myself the more I stared at the painting, a bit similar to the sensation of the helicopter flight intro at the Omni theater. The lighting is generated by the darkness along the left edge of the house and by the darker, inner patches of grass at the right of the painting, leading me to believe the sun would be over the viewer’s right shoulder. There is a definite sense of two-dimensionality in the upper right corner of the painting, where the mountain seems to be unrealistically close to the viewer while simultaneously sharing the same hues as the sky, making one believe that it should be much further in the distance. The painting itself is fairly balanced, lending equal parts to the sky, man-made structures, and the natural landscape of the foreground. The texture of the sky seemed to be of the most interest, as many of the impasto strokes simulated the fluffy texture of the clouds.

Jacob Edwards Museum visit

For the visual formal analysis assignment, the viewer visited the gallery in the UTA Fine Arts building featuring works by Rimer Cardillo. I chose to analyze his photo-silkscreen on paper Duck with Bones, 1991-93. There are no overt outlines but there are light shades of white and grays on a dark background that cause the light shades to stand out and emphasizes the form of the duck. The lines on the feathers correspond with the direction of airflow around the duck as it flies. The long lines of the edges of the femur bone emphasize the direction of growth of that same bone. There are also curved lines that define the shape of the rib bones and the joints of the long bones. The lines of the body of the carcass direct the viewers’ eyes down to the head, which is at the bottom of the image making it very clear that this duck is dead and the downward direction reminds the viewer of the tradition to bury the dead. The femur on the left side of the image is positioned at the same angle as the line from the head to tail of the duck and is in roughly the same position on opposite sides from each other thereby establishing symmetry and balance.

There are many varied, irregular, and organic shapes in the pile of bones and the duck carcass. The objects are in the work as this is a silkscreen. These figures are timid, weak, and grotesque due to being dead. The size of the femur bone is the same size as the duck from head to tail. The various other bones are also of similar size to various parts of the carcass. The form created by shape and line fill approximately two-third of the space of the composition. If the ground or soil underneath the bones and carcass is considered an object then there is no negative, or empty, space but if the ground is simply a background and not an object then about one-third of the composition is negative space. Although a two-dimensional object, it visually projects into the viewers’ space with depth created by the layering of the bones.

The source of the light is implied; whether it is a natural or artificial source is unknown. It could be either sunlight or a camera flash. The shadows are true to life and are depicted through color changes that create depth. White, black, and many shades of gray dominate the work and emphasize death, as colorless and lifeless can sometimes be synonyms, and creates a somber mood. Atmospheric or aerial perspective is not used.

The actual texture is unknown as the viewer is unable to handle the work but the implied texture is rough for the surface of the bone, soft for the feathers, and grainy for the soil. There is more than one focal point in the image creating interest in multiple aspects of the work. The head of the femur is brighter than the distal end at the knee joint and the down of the underbelly is ruffled drawing attention to that side of the work.

Amanda Duchesne museum visit

For my formal analysis of art I decided to visit the Dallas Museum of Art and explore the King Tut exhibit. Ancient Egypt has always been of interest to me so I relished the opportunity to see these artifacts in a different way. I would normally not consider the artistic elements of these items, but after looking at them as a piece of art I can see the beauty and artistic elements. I chose the Canopic Stopper of Tutankhamun because the detail and beauty amazed me.
The Canopic Stopper is a sculpture in white calcite stone. There is some painting on the sculpture for the facial features. As this piece is extremely old I am unsure of what kind of tools would have been available during this time period to carve such a piece. The sculpture is relatively small as it is designed to cover a jar that would contain an organ of King Tut. The sculpture has many horizontal lines throughout with the only exception being the top of the headdress. They are seen not only in the sides of the headdress but also in the face. The lines that make up the eyebrows, eyes and mouth are slightly curved. The lines in the face contribute to an almost expressionless gaze, however as I continued to examine the face it looks sad. The eyes also seem to create an invisible psychological line as they are the first thing I noticed and drew me in.
The stopper is three dimensional and is clearly recognizable as a human face, although not necessarily Tutankhamun. I can find no apparent limitations in the artist’s medium and style perhaps because it is both functional and artistic. The headdress has both a cobra and vulture which are specifically related to King Tut. The sculpture is a bust and was sculpted in a subtractive manner in the round. It is meant to be seen from all sides. Since it is a sculpture light is not a major consideration. However since the artist used paint for the facial features the presence of light accentuates these features more than if it was just sculpted. The sculpture is made of white calcite stone. The artist’s use of color for the face draws the audience to the eyes. The eyes are outlined in black. This addition of color transforms what might be a nondescript piece to a more human and relevant work by adding a hint of emotion and intensifying the gaze. The choice of red on the lips is just a touch of realism. The other painted portion is the vulture. By painting the vulture and part of the cobra the artist accentuates the most important identifying elements of King Tut.
The artist uses balance in the sculpture because it is an accurate representation of a human face. The sculpture is vertically symmetrical with equal elements on both halves. The use of paint makes those areas the focal points. The primary focal point is the eyes while the secondary are the vulture and cobra. The only element of rhythm is found in the headdress. There are repeating horizontal lines. These lines indicate the decorative ornamentation found in the pharaoh’s headdress.

Paragone summary

Not surprisingly our group came to the same conclusion that neither type of art is superior. We found Leonardo Da Vinci’s attitude pretentious and his opinion clearly biased. We were rather surprised at his lack of respect for sculpture. We didn’t find any validity in Leonardo’s arguments and thus found the use of the paragone to be rather useless and highly opinionated. We found that both types presented the same satisfaction even though the skills and mediums differed. This influenced our interpretation because we were able to appreciate both types of art as being both beautiful and requiring equal amounts of skill. Our group did reach a consensus on this issue. We all believe that both painting and sculpture are equally difficult and require equal amounts of skill, just different skill sets.