–What do you think the significance of Allende’s title is? What does it mean to be made of clay? –

-What happens to Rolf in his encounter with Azucena?

–Why do you think Azucena becomes a symbol of the tragedy that is unfolding in the story?

–What did you make of the President’s visit to the site of the disaster? What kind of commentary is Allende making here?

–How can you connect this story with your own experiences of natural or other disasters? Are there elements of the story that you can relate to? How?

–How is the theme of maternity explored in the story? Give at least two examples.
–Morrison adds issues of class to what is already a complicated story about race. Why? Where in the story do you see evidence of this?
–What is the meaning of Morrison’s title, Recitatif? How does it work as a title for this story?
–What are Twyla and Roberta fighting about in the section about school busing? What’s going on between them?
–Is the story’s perspective on race relations ultimately pessimistic or optimistic? Why?
–Why do you think Morrison chooses not to be explicit about which girl is African American and which girl is Caucasian?

–Why does the narrator address his listener as “my son”?

–The narrator tells us that “every new generation finds the doum tree as though it had been born at the time of their birth and would grow up with them.” What do you make of this?

–What seems to be the story’s perspective on the government in newly independent Sudan? What’s the relationship between the government and the villagers?

–Explain the shift in narratorial perspective in the final passages of the story? How does it change our own view of the text

Salvador Dali was a 19^th century artist who was associated with the surrealist movement during his career. Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain and died on January 23, 1989 in the same town. Dali is best known for his contributions to realism including his “Paranoiac-Critical method” which he used to access the subconscious part of his mind in order to gain inspiration for his art. He is also known for being a versatile artist being involved in several fields like sculpture, printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and filmmaking; for which he famously collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock. Dali was nonetheless flamboyant in nature and was perceived by many to have been crazy.

“The Persistence of Memory” is a landscape painting with surrealistic and cubism attributes. The painting consists of a deformed face on the seemingly desert ground, ants on a gold watch, and three melting clocks resembling pizza dough on top of the face, a tree branch, and next to the gold watch. The painting also has realistic cliffs in the background that are similar to those found in Spain near Dali’s home and which, along with the sea, are perhaps the only realistic features in the painting.

This painting strongly portrays the aesthetic preferences of modernism because of its imaginative qualities of surrealism. The disfigured face on the ground naturally appears confusing to the average person. Aspects of the face are thought-provoking or even repulsive like the unusually long eye-lashes, the giant nose, and what appears to be a tongue just under the nose; many still question this “tongue” and believe it to be other things including saliva. The painting also shows some cubism aesthetics like the edges surrounding the sea and the ground under the tree. The juxtaposition of the tree, clocks, face, watch, and ants with the background are another indicator of surrealism in the painting.

“The Persistence of Memory” in the MoMa was among other apparently Modernistic paintings. What drew me to this piece outright was the bizarre appearance of the grey figure and the pizza-like clocks slouching on objects. It was not until I read about the painting that I realized that the grey figure was a face; I thought it had been a lying elephant or a simple blanket on the ground. I also love seeing and traveling to beautiful landscapes, like the one portrayed in the painting, in real life and so that also drew me to the painting. One question I would have for Dali is what the ants on the golden watch symbolized. Also, why is “time” in the painting apparently rotting? The ants and the fly on the clocks are puzzling. Another question I would have is on how Dali managed to get inspiration for this painting.

Resources:

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm

http://www.dalipaintings.net/

Giorgio De Chirico was an Italian painter born in Greece. He lived from 1888-1978 and he painted this artwork in 1915. De Chirico is known mainly for his role in the Surrealist movement. Many surrealist paintings aimed to reveal the unconscious using the juxtaposition of very different objects or images (Webster definition of Surrealism).

Aspects of surrealism can be seen from the many different objects inside the painting that appear almost randomly. Looking at the title of the painting, the double dream is probably referring to the two landscapes within the painting. The outer landscape is the setting outside of what appears to be a sketch of another landscape. On the outer landscape, there is a noticeably large statue on the left. The statue is facing away from the viewer of the painting and looks as if it’s looking towards the cloudy, blue sky. On the right side of the painting, there appears to be two people standing still with a mountain in the background. There is also something like a red balloon protruding past the building, hovering over them. The left and right side of the outer landscape is very different. The large wooden beam holding the sketch serves as if it is dividing the outer landscape into two different scenes. Looking at the sketch, something very noticeable is the large figure in the back. That figure looks like it’s the same large statue that is on the left of the outer landscape. From that viewpoint, it’s possible that the sketch may have been made as the sketcher was looking out towards the outer landscape from somewhere close. The sketcher could have been staring outside the window of his home when he saw the large figure and train in the background. That may explain why there is a table with a drinking cup on it. There’s also a building in the background on the right side with two people standing in front of it. It’s interesting that there is two people standing in the same position in both landscapes. The inner sketch could actually just be an industrialized version of the outer landscape because the mountain behind the two people changes into a building in the sketch. There’s also the train in the sketch, which is a symbol of industrialization.

The various objects in this work reflect the aesthetic preferences associated with Modernism. The scenery in both landscapes appear very modern. There are industrial objects throughout such as the train and buildings. The juxtaposition of the different objects such as the mountain behind the two people and the building behind the two people in the sketch is a reflection of surrealist thoughts. The painting shows that in the painter’s unconscious, he was slowly witnessing the effects of industrialization. The outer landscape is slowly transforming into the inner landscape within the sketch.

I encountered this work near a bunch of De Chirico’s other paintings. All of them were within the same time period of 1910-1920. I was drawn to all his paintings on display because they had very modern backgrounds with unique colors. There were industrial looking structures in all three of the ones I saw. They were very pleasing to my eyes.

“I and the Village” was created by Marc Chagall in 1911. Chagall was a Russian-born artist, but he spent most of his life in Paris. Marc Chagall was born in Belarus in 1887 and he left Russia for Paris in 1907. “After returning to Vitebsk for a visit in 1914, the outbreak of WWI trapped Chagall in Russia. He returned to France in 1923 but was forced to flee the country and Nazi persecution during WWII. Finding asylum in the U.S.” Because his parents were devout Hasidic Jews, Chagall was influenced by Jewish culture deeply. Marc Chagall uses “color of love” to create those famous pieces “based on emotional association rather than traditional pictorial fundamentals.”

“I and the Village evokes Chagall’s memories of his native Hasidic community outside Vitebsk.” This work not only arouses Chagall’s nostalgia about his childhood memory, but also reflects the harmony between peasants and animals. In the picture, we can see that the cow and the peasant look at each other, the connection between them may suggest their dependent relationship. A woman gets milk from the cow, meanwhile peasants feed animals like cows. The man’s face is green, which represents nature and lives. And he holds a little tree that blooms flowers, symbolize the tree of life. It is magical when I recognize there is a circle make up by their face and the background. Human and animals live together in one universe, although they contain in different planes. There has some colorful houses and an Orthodox church in the back may look like buildings in Russia. In my opinion, the man with hoe is on his way to home, Chagall uses that to express his nostalgia, “in Paris he used a disjunctive geometric structure to carry him back home.”

In this artwork, I see different geometric shapes and interesting images. Chagall puts those images in different spatial position, which incarnates cubism. As a stream of modernism, “Cubism was mainly an art of urban avant-garde society.” “I and the Village” also reflects Chagall’s own rural experience, which coincides to the modernism’s concept that emphasizes the importance of individual experience. And this work shows Marc Chagall’s surrealism as well. Since the peasant and cow (or goat) combined in a strange way, two houses and a female violinist stand in an upside down direction, I feel that we can only see these images in our dreams. These dreamlike imagery also shows Chagall’s creativity that goes against gravity and order. Through I and the Village, Chagall gives expression to cubism and surrealism vividly, expresses his unconscious thoughts and dreams. He is admired as one of the pioneers of Surrealism by art historians in 20th century.

The juxtaposition of animal and human, the contrast of green and red catch my eyes when I saw this piece of art. Therefore, both brilliant colors and position of interesting imagery drew me to pick this artwork. Due to various cultural and religious elements, we can see Chagall’s rich experience and imagination. I have question that what’s meaning of man’s cap and cow’s necklace.

Work Cited
“Marc Chagall.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 06 May 2016.

“Marc Chagall. I and the Village. 1911 | MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art. Web. 06 May 2016.

The painting that I chose to write about was “Bather” by Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso is one of the most well known painters in history. Born in Malaga, Spain, Pablo got heavily into art at a very young age. He was able to complete his first painting at nine years old. During his teenage years, Picasso was able to go to the best art schools in Spain. Eventually, Picasso was able to help create the art form of Cubism. Cubism is a form of painting that features simple geometric shapes. Picasso ends up being one of the most influential artists in the world with the help of his fifty-thousand plus works of art. Pablo Picasso is without a doubt one of the true pioneers of art.

In the painting Bather, Picasso used a nude female figure standing at the sea. Just from looking at the painting, it was very hard to tell whether the figure was a male or a female. What convinced me to believe that the figure was a female was by looking closely at the figure’s chest. It took me a little while to see that those are actually breasts that Picasso had painted on the figure. Also, by looking closely at the figure’s head, I was able to see that she has long hair that was tied up into a bun. Picasso was also able to make her breasts, stomach and shoulders into geometric arcs and curves. Usually, traditional paintings capture a single moment from a single perspective. However, Picasso was able to portray the figure’s torso from the front, back, side and presenting multiple views at once.

All of Picasso’s paintings including “Bather” is definitely apart of the Modern Era. Before the Modern Era, paintings were created in a very basic and traditional way. Pablo Picasso decided to do his artwork in a much different way. With his creation of Cubism, he was able to revolutionize the whole art world and is considered one of the most famous and lucrative artists of all time. “Bather” really stands out to a lot of people including myself. I was very impressed of how Picasso was able to show the many different views of the torso. You can see her chest, her sides and her back at the same time. I know that Picasso put his heart and soul into this painting just like he does with all of his other works of art. Two questions that I would really love to know is how long did it take him to fully create the painting and what was his inspiration of making this painting. Pablo Picasso was a man that loved women very much which makes sense as to why the figure is a female, but I really think that there is much more as to why she is standing at the sea. I really enjoyed going to museum and learning more about Pablo Picasso. He is truly one of the all time greats in the arts.

  Paul Klee a Expressionist artist lived from 1879 until 1940 in Switzerland. Klein was well known for teaching at the famous German art school Bauhaus. He was also a musician and played the violin many times before painting. Paul cared very much on how children created painting and the things that they drew. Klee was known for breaking the barriers of art and using different techniques within his paintings. He was a strong transcendentalist which meant he thought there were many other realities than the one we see which I think shows a lot about the piece I chose which was Cat and Bird.

     Cat and Bird was a painting he created in 1928 in the Expressionism style.It was created on Oil and ink on gessoed canvas while mounted to wood. We can see that the bird is in the cats forehead which shows that this is what the cat is thinking about, the bird is literally flying through the cats mind. As we look at the painting we can draw our eyes to two different images by either focusing on the cat for the bird which is within the cat.  There is even a children’s book called The Cat and the Bird which I think Kleen would be happy about because he is always looking out for the children and wants to see the works that they have created.

     This works relates to Modernism in that it shows the barriers that were broken in creating this art piece and many other pieces created by Kleen. He did not have the ordinary way of pursuing and creating art but he alway thoughts of ways to make his art abstract and seem peculiar to the viewer. I think that this shows a lot of what the new coming of age is all about in art. That the paintings shouldn’t be simple but portray different ideas within the works. For example this work has a cat and a bird both put into one image. The idea behind this is that Kleen wants to viewer to decide and see whats important in the image and not make it so clear cut. The new age of Modernism and Expressionism looks very highly at this and it went on over the year until today.

     As I was walking through the Moma I couldn’t really find a piece that struck me or interested me in such a powerful way. As I walk by this painting there was just something about it that caught my eye and made me question what I was seeing. I think this is what Klee wanted when he showed people his painting. This painting to me was a prime example of a modernist painting. There is just something about the colors and the shades that he uses to make this painting really special and to have an effect on many people on how they perceive it.

Works Cite:

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-klee-paul.htm

Giorgio de Chirico (1888 –1978) was an Italian artist who founded the Metaphysical art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists (1). He worked with a series of painting styles throughout his life. In the 1910s, for example, he created classically inspired empty town squares. De Chirico stated, “To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream” (2). He believed that art should not be rational. Then, later in his career, in the 1920s, he began to adopt qualities of Renaissance and Baroque art. This caused reproach from his supporters because Renaissance art is very structured, it makes sense to the human mind, and this form of art goes against his previous belief.

Giorgio de Chirico, The Double Dream of Spring, 1915 is oil on canvas. The painting has earthly colors; about half of the painting is blue and the other half has shades of gray, brown, green, tan, and red. It is divided into three scenes. On the left there is a depiction of a statue that seems to be looking up into the sky. On the right hand side there is a red figure that seems to be the head of a man. Along the middle of the painting there is a vertical wooden stand holding a sketch done on a canvas. This sketch is very geometrical and the background is the same color as the sky.

As we discussed in the classroom, Modern art is characterized by: loss of faith, cynicism, alienation, interest in incoherence, interest in fragmentation, resistance to narrative coherence, and other. In this painting one can see the interest in fragmentation in the unfinished sketch at the center of the artwork. One can also see alienation because the figures are fairly distanced from each other.

In this painting there is the presence of inanimate human looking figures. For example, the statue represents a person but it has no life given that it is a statue. There are a couple of stick figures in the background but they too are inanimate. Finally, there is the red head of a dummy, it seems to represent a man but there is no life either. This is a lifeless piece of artwork.

What drew me to this piece was the contrast of color. The blue sky and the red head really stood out to me amongst the brown, green, gray, and tan. It was interesting to see a blue canvas with a sketch inside a painting. There is a painting inside a painting, this interested me, and the title of the work describes it as being a dream within a dream. Given that both dreams depict inanimate figures, does this mean that the person dreaming this felt inanimate also?

1. http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/1106?=undefined&page=1
2. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-de-chirico-giorgio.htm

One of most effected artists in 20^th century, Pablo Picasso, was born in Spain on October 25, 1881. When he was young, he learned painting from his father, who was a painter. Since Picasso’s talent surpassed the previous generation, his father supported him with his art career through education and organizing exhibition. In 1895, Picasso’s family moved to Barcelona, Spain and he entered School of Fine Arts. After that he enrolled into Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1897. After 1900, he worked and travelling between Barcelona and Paris. In 1904, he settled down in Paris. In 1907, one of his great works, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, was created and started the cubism movement in arts. After 1920, he accepted the surrealistic concept of art and expended his works to a wider range. He did not focus on the only one kind of arts but he always tried to be more creative with new art styles. He was still impassioned for his work up until the moment he passed away. He died on April 8, 1973 in France. His paintings, sculptures, printmaking, ceramics, and etc. are evaluated to great value. During 80 years of living, he left about 50,000 art pieces.

In Museum of Modern Art, there are many Picasso’s pieces. His arts are very strange in my eyes. I cannot understand some his works even though I read the descriptions. However, “Three Musicians” piece by Picasso stood out and caught my eyes. The background of this piece is dark but the main part, which focused on the three musicians, are bright and colorful. First musician is playing a pipe and wearing a white suite. The middle musician is playing a guitar and wearing more splendid and luxurious clothing than other two musicians. The third musician is holding music sheets and wearing black gown.

This piece of art is not smooth and the strokes do not connect. Everything was made of flat and abstract shapes that created a more 3-dimensional affect. For example, musicians’ heads, arms, legs, noses and eyes are not in harmony or even. It is very stereoscopic and looks like pop-up paper art in a closed box. This piece was painted in the Synthetic Cubism style, which was revolutionary and became an important part of modernism style.

The reason I chose this art piece is the music side in me. I have been learning music for more than 12 years of my life, specifically piano. Naturally, I would be drawn into pieces that have musical related theme. In addition, bright and colorful items attract my attention as well. The “Three Musicians” fits both of the categories that would catch my attention. It was hard for me to figure out what his art works are about. However, I can pick up what this piece is right away when I saw it.

My question about the art work is what inspired Picasso to portrait the “Three Musicians” in 3 different types and styles of clothing, from white and bright, to clown-like colorful, and to black and dark like a wizard cloak. Is there a hidden message in this painting? What is Picasso trying to convey to the audience, beside our interpretation from viewing his art?