The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh This is the art that gives me the most deeply impression. I have saw this picture in so many ways, so actually I know the story of this painting so long ago, but this is the first time that Im standing in front of a priceless painting. After I saw its introduction, I knew that this mid-scale, oil-on-canvas painting is dominated by a moon- and star-filled night sky. It takes up three-quarters of the picture plane and appears turbulent, even agitated, with intensely swirling patterns that seem to roll across its surface like waves. It is pocked with bright orbs—including the crescent moon to the far right, and Venus, the morning star, to the left of center—surrounded by concentric circles of radiant white and yellow light. Beneath this expressive sky sits a hushed village of humble houses surrounding a church, whose steeple rises sharply above the undulating blue-black mountains in the background. A cypress tree sits at the foreground of this night scene. Flame-like, it reaches almost to the top edge of the canvas, serving as a visual link between land and sky. Considered symbolically, the cypress could be seen as a bridge between life, as represented by the earth, and death, as represented by the sky, commonly associated with heaven. Also, Van Gogh used the best pigment and canvas for his all painting, so that his painting can be keep a very long period without natural ageing, so it is also one of the reason that makes his painting become extremely valuable.

It is a rainy Monday, but still have sunshine go through the curtain and shines on Junyans face, in this moment, he knows he needs to get up early today the morning class. He always set an alarm at 7:30 to have more time to enjoy his breakfast, but it seems never happened, neither today. So, after he got dressed and left the house at 9:00, he grabs his breakfast, and rush down to the first floor because he doesnt want to waste any second to wait for the lift. He is eating breakfast while walking quite fast on the street forward to the subway station. After he rush to the train station, the strong wind blows on him, and he realize that the train is incoming. It is a crowed F train. Anyway, the only think he needs to do is get in the train before others take the last few spaces. He gets off the train at 23St 6^th Avenue and walk directly to the east side, he sees that almost everyone on the street walks fast with a serious face, he walks down the hallway and take out his phone, the time is 9:56. Another perfect arriving day he thinks, then he gets into the classroom.

Freud’s “Family Romance” gives an interesting perspective about how we use a different point of view to see one’s family in different ages. It looks like a very interesting phenomenon of “Same Sex Threat”. To analyze it logically, in some of the things freud mentioned in the Family’s Romance. One of which is Freud’s approach to how a child sees his parents in a sense of utopia. One refers to his parents as all-can-do guardians where the father is the strongest of all men, and the mother is the most loving of all women, “his father seemed to him the noblest and strongest of men and his mother the dearest and loveliest of women.

Freud’s theory basically means that boys want to kill their fathers so they can be with their mothers, and the Electra complex is that girls want to get rid of their mothers so they can be with their fathers, since Freud believed that children see parents of the same sex as a threat. While theories like this clearly got the public interested in psychology because they elicited a very strong response, modern psychology research has disproved almost all of them, and very few of Freudian theories are still applied today.

According to the article, The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas. The author stated about the quarrel between “ancients and moderns” Unlike both ancient or the modern age, many people will embrace either the ancient nor the modern or most likely prove superior to any alternatives. I think that modernity brought civilization and advancement into mankind.

For years people blindly followed conventions that were passed down and taught to them by the society in which they existed. people began to break out of these conventions and their codes of behavior and began to embrace individualism. Instead of relying on the words of the priest, or the authority of the King, Enlightenment thinkers began to express ideals of relying on your own authority. rebellions and revolutions began to take place in England and the Americas as the notion of divine right began to die out.

On the other hand, the violent and brewed up emotions across both political camps, unfortunately discourage and eliminate the opportunity for individuals to discuss controversial topics based on reason and fact. The constant fear among past and current politicians are expressed here: “Those who believed in the desirability of reason’s governance often worried that it rarely prevailed over feelings of greed, lust, or the desire for power.

This image always gets any viewers attention. 1950. Jackson Pollock

Was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was known for his unique style of drip painting.

Something in this unique and confusing painting brought out certain emotions. I always believed that, that was the power of art. Sometimes it didn’t have to have a meaning but the emotion within it that then comes out of you was the real art. The black and white colors, showing good and evil and the different stages within those all mixed together. To me it meant chaos and that in order to have good in you its always mixed in with a little darkness.

This painting by Kahlo’s was created in the late 1900-1954. Her painting inspired me.

The painting was included In the first major exhibition of her work, held at Julien

Levy Gallery in New York in 1938. In the essay that accompanied the show, the Surrealist leader Andre Breton describe Kahlo’s work as “a ribbon around a bomb” and hailed her as a self-created Surrealist painter. Although she appreciated his enthusiasm.

The Vertigo of Eros was done by a Chilean artist names Roberto Matta in 1944. The thing that really drew me into this painting is the chaotic beauty that I felt when I first laid eyes on it. There is very powerful sense of mystery in this painting with the heavy dark background and the soft blended essenceof yellow floating around. I almost feel as if I am dreaming when I tune in to the painting and act as if nothing else exists.

As an artist, Matta was very focused on representing and painting with spontaneity and automatism which I find very relatable. I have many friends who are artist, and in watching the creative process of each one of them, everyone approaches their work differently. Most of the artists that I have been with usually have some kind of plan or route in which they want to take in their new piece of art.

For me, when I try to create something, using my emotions and trying to tap into a deeper sense of self and soul, I feel that whatever your body starts to create at random is true expression of self. I believe that when one tries to think too much or plan too much, one may start to get lost in their thoughts, so much so that one may forget to stay in touch with their intuitive self while working rather than involving your intellect. Not to say that it is wrong for others to plan and think through what their want to create. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. But how I see it, is that one should lose themselves completely in their artwork and it should take him or her into a world of their own that they create from the soul. Matta has created this other dimension in the painting that I find myself watching intently as if I were looking to find a story of some sort or some movement to start to happen. But really, there is movement in the painting in the way that he uses the accents of yellow and shades of dark and light to create this kind of outerspace sensation.

The essay from the back of Wide Sargasso Sea which I have chosen to focus on is entitled “Smile Please” and it is written by Jean Rhys. The essay is broken up into several sections and is a part of her unfinished autobiography. In this text Rhys describes her life as a white Creole woman growing up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. Through these collection of texts we can sea how Rhys’s own life in a way paralleled certain events that occurred in  Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys grew up with a nurse named Meta who has some similarities to Christophine since practiced Obeah and spoke of zombies and other mythical evil creatures. Unlike how kind Christophine is to Antoinette , Meta is cruel to Rhys so I believe that when Rhys was writing Wide Sargasso Sea she took the liberty to create a compassionate and caring nurse for Antoinette that is loosely based off of her own experience with Meta. Rhys also talks about a riot taking place next door to her own home during which her parents woke her up in the middle of the night in case they would have to flee. This scene is reminiscent to the very beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea when Antoinette’s house is being faced with a riot and she must flee with her family before her house was burned to the ground. Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea based on her own experiences living as a white Creole in the Caribbean so this essay helped shine a light on the parallels between her own life and Antoinette’s.

When I first saw Frida Kahlo’s My Family Tree, I made an immediate comparison to Salvador Dali. Although upon close examination, the two paintings are as different as apples and landmines, at first glance, It seemed abstract and whimsical in a not-immediately understandable sort of way.

The MOMA blurb says that this painting was painted in response to the passing of the Nuremburg laws, which forbade interracial marriage. The experts say that this painting highlights her German-Jewish father and Mexican mother, and that the background land-meeting-sea symbolizes the mixing of races and cultures. What I at first imagined as being Dali-esque, I quickly noticed was the classic framing of heritage on a generic family tree. But with a deeper look, there are definitely more abstract details, like the sperm meeting the egg, and the Frida Kahlo baby towering over her suspected childhood house living room bisection. Theres nothing particularly impressive about the skill level present in the painting, but from afar – across the room – the painting manages spectacularly to catch the eye and every last bit of attention in the room. The bland, flat colors, and the lack of superfine details do nothing to diminish the inherent quality of the actual subject matter in the painting. To me, this painting requires the recognition of the artist in order to be defined as a serious work of art. But then again, I am not a connoisseur on the subject. I do very much appreciate the MOMA and many other museums, and had an amazing time going. The project/trip definitely makes me want to go back.