Author Archives: j.dutan

This was the first time I ever Visited the Museum of Modern Art and it was an amazing experience. I took my time going through all the floors and when I finally arrived at the 5th floor I saw incredible work all around, however, there was one piece that caught my attention the most.  The name of the artwork was called “Man with a Guitar” by Georges Braque which was made in 1912. George Braques was the leading face of cubism and most of his work consisted of still life and other images that can be viewed through different perspectives, whether it is the color, texture, or the type of lines. According to TheArtStory.org, Georges Braque glued ads to his work which paved and foreshadowed another movement called Pop Art. This was surprising because last semester I actually wrote a speech about Pop Art and Andy Warhol, so reading this information was very interesting. Going back to the painting, the mode the artwork was made in is called Analytic Cubism which involves basic principle shapes that overlap to create different ideas in the art piece. According to Moma.org Georges Braque created a 3D illusion to make people try and understand the concept of a man playing the guitar that is broken down into “Geometrical shapes”.  Since this art piece is analytic cubism it is a stream of modernism. When walking around the Museum everyone was attracted to the starry night, which was nice to look at, but I wanted to focus my attention on all these other beautiful pieces. When I arrived at this particular art piece I was really interested in it because it reminded me of a concept that a music artist used in his music video in which the picture was distorted just like this image. Therefore, I stayed and tried to analyze this particular art piece to figure out what it was. My impatience prevailed and I eventually looked up on the internet to get more details on this art piece. Some question I have for this art piece is why a man playing the guitar? I like to know what inspires an artist. Was George Braques walking down the street and saw a man playing the guitar? Everyone gets their inspiration from different things and I personally like to know what an artist thinks of. It’s like stepping into the artist’s shoes for a brief second.

For the Art-A-Thon I went to a jazz piano lesson for beginners taught by Professor Anne Swartz and was possibly the best morning I have had so far at Baruch. Professor Anne Swartz was so nice and very good at teaching the piano that I am considering taking piano classes in the future. I use to play the clarinet in middle school, so I was a little bit familiar with instruments, but since then I have completely forgotten how to play.

I arrived at 9am and waited until it was my turn to play the piano. I learned pretty quickly to read the music sheet and how to play the beginners part of the Jazz music sheet. Since I learned the beginners part quickly, professor Swartz taught me how to play with both hands instead of one. After being taught, I went into one of the private piano rooms to practice for a while. It was very exciting when I started to get a hold of the music, however, I kept messing up my left-hand part. Eventually, I finished practicing and I went back to play for professor Swartz along with another student and to my surprise, I had actually learned the entire thing. Playing alongside professor Swartz and another student felt very natural and made the whole experience a lot better. We were all in sync and hearing the outcome of all our hard work created an everlasting memory inside my head. When we left I asked if I could keep the music sheet so I could practice at home. That night I did go home and plugged in my electronic piano and kept practicing. I forgot how enjoyable playing an instrument can be. Since then, every other day I plug in my computer and play a few different types of music from soundtracks of my favorite movies or TV shows.

I am a very creative person and I like all types of art. That is why when I heard the extra credit involved Art, I was very excited. I am minoring in art and therefore I think I will take some piano classes.

Hello, my name is Jose Dutan and I am a freshman. I am in the Seek program which means that I started college during the summer. At first, I hated the fact that it was mandatory, but now I see that it helped me a lot. I learned the buildings and met a lot of great people. I am majoring in marketing and going to minor in art. I intend to be a creative director or something in the arts. I am good at photoshop, adobe illustrator, and Indesign. I reside in Long Island City, Queens and am the youngest of my siblings. My brother is 28 years old and my sister is 22 years old. I am Mexican and Ecuadorian, my mother is Mexican and father is Ecuadorian. I work at a car transporting company as an online bidder. Working and handling school at the same time is difficult, but I intend to keep up with both of them. I plan to travel during the summer to Italy, Greece or Asia.