Medium of the Art/ Technique of the Artist
One painting that I found striking was Champ d'avoine (Oat Field) by the magnificent Claude Monet, one of my favorite artists. I have a small version of Water Lilies at my house, but I had never seen an original Monet in person. Seeing it in person made me appreciate just how intricate his style of painting was. Monet's technique of the small, simple brushstrokes combined to be a beautiful landscape. What Champ d'avoine communicated to me was how there is beauty in simplicity. The artwork made me feel nostalgic about adventures in my own life out in a vast oat field.
Design of the Museum
I particularly liked the way the museum had artwork in a glass display in the center of this wing. The placement caught my eye right away. The area was well-lit and made use the the center of the room, whereas other wings were empty in the center and focused the light mostly toward the walls. My attention was drawn to this Standing Nude Woman illustration. The exhibit made me feel like it was intentionally pointing out what it wanted most to display. I felt the statement of sexual liberation from the artwork.
Art and Core Values
Both Florida Landscape and Overlook Mountain appealed to one of my core values: experiencing nature. The visual representation of Florida Landscape really allows me to better understand my core value because it reminds me of my backyard growing up, which reveals to me that I also long for a home like the one I grew up in, basically living with nature all around me. Overlook Mountain reminds me of my travels in the mountains; the serenity and beauty of nature that surrounded me gave me a feeling of utter peace that I never want to lose. Both works of art gave me a great sense of nostalgia. They helped me better understand my belief that it is necessary to travel and experience the world in which we live in order to experience the Good Life to the fullest extent. My ideology is that we may not ever know why we are put here on this planet, so we might as well explore every part that we can and find beauty in everything before we're simply gone forever.
Art and the Good Life
Nadia in Sharp Profile by Henri Matisse is an artwork in the Harn that conveys Embodying the Good Life. The artwork evokes this theme because it brings up the question of beauty and whether it is necessary to be beautiful to live the Good Life. What this work of art says is that there is beauty in everything. It adds to my understanding that beauty is subjective; society can't come up with some kind of formula that creates what beauty is. It makes me appreciate the simplicity of beauty. To live the Good Life one must learn how to find the beauty that is within everything.
Above: Frida Kahlo on White Bench, New York, Nickolas Muray