Author Archives: Richard Sam

On May 2nd, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Modern Art for a brief and enjoyable visit. Upon arriving, I came with a friend to browse around art work between the 1890’s to the early 1920’s. I had found a lot of unique and fascinating art work that grasped my attention the moment I walked in. But the painting I acquired to be the most enticing was the “Catalan Landscape”. The “Catalan Landscape” was an oil on canvas created by Joan Miró in the time period between 1923-1924. Joan Miró was a Spanish painter, sculptor, print maker and decorative artist. Despite not understanding the whole painting at first, I connected the description displaced with the landscape.

I encountered this artwork while glancing work upon the 1920’s modernist paintings in the gallery. This piece in particular stood out to me because of the unusual placement of figures across the landscape. Not only did this fascinate me but I was curious to decipher what it stood for and what it meant. At first this artwork looked like a range of body parts and objects across the painting. But after I discovered it’s real meaning I was enticed to write about this individual piece. Some questions that arose to me was his intentions to portray the hunter in the landscape.

Miró’s style had a relationship between art and nature which lies behind all his work and account in good measure. Throughout his career, he developed a Surrealist language of colors and symbols that is widely regarded as one of the main influences for Abstract Expressionism. Surrealism basically defies the dreams and visions envisioned displayed on artwork. This type of style was established to go against traditional art work and what it stood for. “Catalan Landscape” is an excellent example of Joan Miró’s personal surrealist style.

Joan Miró’s The Hunter (Catalan Landscape) may seem abstract, but a closer look reveals a landscape populated with a assortment of human and animal figures and natural forms that together comprise an iconography of the artist’s life. The two different colors on the background are displayed as the sky and the earth. On the left side of the painting there’s a figure of the hunter, with a Catalonian beret and a pipe. Even though, it’s difficult to decipher where the images are in the painting, the description leads us to imagine and correlate the painting to it’s meaning. “Catalan Landscape” was of great importance in Miró’s career, having a great influence on his series of “imaginary landscapes”.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend an event at the Art.A.Thon called the JourneyDance. The JourneyDance was an opportunity for everyone to move and dance freely to express yourself. The moment I entered, I was introduced with the instructor Jannet Rossbach. She explained how this dance event was an opportunity to express oneself to ease away from tension and to connect with your inner thoughts. At first, I thought this was an event to learn how to dance but rather it was a way to do whatever you like to express yourself. In addition, at the beginning I was hesitant to even attend this event as I wouldn’t consider myself as the greatest dancer. Even though, I found this quite interesting and knew it would be an outgoing or enjoyable experience. Before arriving, I had brought a couple of friends with me for this event. When my friends and I arrived we followed the instructors moves and actions while doing our own thing. One of my friends actually got really into the session and did a break down of his own freestyle. My friend is quite a good dancer and it made it even more interesting when he showed his moves. Besides Johnathon (the best dancer in the group), my other friends and I tried following the simpler steps and followed my professor. Overall the experience was great, as it was an activity to do while on my break between classes.

Hello everyone, my name is Richard Sam and I am currently a junior at Baruch College. My intended major is finance and I am also minoring in communications. I desire to graduate in 2020 with the intentions of acquiring the knowledge in the business field. I was born in India and was bought up in the US at the age of 4 months. I have lived in Long Island ever since I was small and yet never really encountered the city since college. I found my college experience so far engaging as well as tedious because of the commute and environment of the school. Everyone tends to be moving in a fast pace as well as directed into one goal. My hobbies or activities I enjoy include playing basketball, volleyball, track as well as listening to music. Personally I enjoy playing basketball the most. I participated in a few leagues when I was younger, as well as coaching in minor league tournaments now. But besides sports, I’m currently engaged in going to the gym to get into shape. Even though, this has been a recent obsession, I desire to go at least four days of the week as I tend to find it a stress reliver. On the weekends, I work at my uncle’s office, which is 20 minutes away from where I live. I began to acquire insight in the business aspects of accounting at the age of 18 when I began working there. Currently, I go to school four days a week and commute using the LIRR. My commute ranges from anywhere around an hour including a 20 minute walk from Penn Station to Baruch College. Even though I often find it tedious to commute to Baruch, it is often worth it for the education I have received. I was always fascinated in majoring in the field of finance in specific because of my family. I’ve had a few cousins who graduated from Baruch College, as they had gave me positive insight in the profession itself. Personally, I desire to branch off in the business field and try anticipating in investment banking. I hope to one day accomplish my goal in this profession also graduate first with my bachelors degree.