The “Textile with Elephants, Crowned Double-Headed Eagles, and Flowers ” is dated back to the “second half of the 16th century.” This exquisitely patterned “silk damask” was woven by the Chinese and sold in the Iberian market. The Portuguese who were the first voyagers to set up European ports in Asia through the Indian Ocean Basin, could operate only at the port of Macau. Though foreign trade opened China to new forms of wealth, successors of the Ming empire forbade foreign interaction in China and ended maritime trade so that China could revert back to traditional standards of living which involved strictly following Confucian values. However, thousands of Chinese merchants managed to trade with, for example, Spanish forces in Manila, as well as the Dutch VOC at their “colonial capital of Batavia.” Consequently, Chinese merchants were of the lowest class according to Confucian “social hierarchy” because moralists saw them as avaricious and “unscrupulous social parasites.” Still, China developed elegant silks also among other decorative, traditional fabrics to the point where Europeans copied Chinese techniques and thus made artificial products to sell within the European markets. This silk damask is darkly colored in blue and gold where the consistent pattern of floral, double-headed eagles, and short-eared elephants give it a sense of genius and power, but Europeans would find it harder to understand the deeper meaning behind this textiles and so could only admire the piece aesthetically.

Ramanpreet Chand

“Two Men Contemplating the Moon,” by Casper David Friedrich is a German, oil on canvas from 1825 to 1830. The most prominent component of this painting is its diagonal landscape, where it seems an uprooted tree is falling not forward out of the picture and into our space compared to paintings of Romanticism’s predecessors, but backwards, almost into its own. This parallels the disengagement of the two male figures, in the middle ground, as they both do not interact with the viewer. Its a painting focusing on its own world. Its a painting that works to emphasize contemplation. Usually the act of contemplating focuses on a single aspect of life rather than many, where engaging an audience would force one to think about or show many other things in comparison. In fact, the era of Romanticism is in part characterized by imagination and emotion, and an appreciation of external nature which Friedrich portrays both as the two frozen, but relaxed figures look interestedly and diagonally at parts of the landscape.

Ramanpreet Chand

Bedcover
England, late 17th century
cotton embroidered with silk

This bedcover was made by an English man with Indian cotton, using the “typical Indian palette of golden yellow thread on white.” This was sold by GCE or the English East India Company. The design on the bedcover is intricate and throughout, repeating patterns that are floral. The market for Indian cotton and Indian style embroideries in England were not that great until the late 17th century when this was made. From then, embroideries made for the European market flourished, and “Indian embroidery influenced domestic design.” These bedcovers were meant to be sold in Europe, or wherever demand was greatest. These designs which were from a different country had became desired in their own countries of Europe. Showing changing tastes due to the influx of trade showed a cultural shift. Manufactorers in the English East India Company realized that they could jump into this market and started to make such goods using foreign styles.
For further information http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/view?exhibitionId={063A1AA2-5A4E-439A-A332-046E00E8BD73}&oid=223005&pg=1&rpp=10&pos=8&ft=*

Eugene Delacroix
The Natchez 1835

Normally Indians are shown as savages, naked, wild, beasts or even barbarians. In this painting by Delacroix, you see a tender, almost effeminate qualities coming from a man. Wearing earrings, and having a feather in his hair he seems to don more jewelry than his female companion. He tenderly caresses the newborn baby and looks on with love. From the woman you can see masculine features in her face. She does not reach out to her newborn but instead looks at both the man and her child with serenity. Though these depictions of the Natchez show them in a different light, they still seem to be primitive. Both are wearing little to no clothing on some parts of their body, and seem to have no shoes. The painting though, instead of showing a warring scene or one with anger, shows a soft, sweet moment typical of Romanticism style painting. They seem at peace and free, being surrounded by nothing but land and water.
For further information http://metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/436180

Kelly Ip

Yaniv Cohen

The Gramsci Monument

While walking through this new type of art called presence and production, I realized that every single item there, from the big studio to the duck tape all over- was placed for a reason and had a purpose behind it. The Gramsci Monument is no simple statue of art, it is designed to be an art with a purpose behind it, an art to effect inspire, and most definitely appreciate.
One of the most interesting items in the Gramsci Monument which contained much depth was this basket of apples and a sign above stating “A Gramsci Apple a Day Keeps Consumption Away”. This struck me at first as a simple joke, with very little meaning. But this is actually exactly the opposite of what I thought it had been. One of the biggest problems in that era was Consumption, how this new generation was overtaken by the need to consume, this radically capitalist need an endless amount of money money in order to consume, and consume even when not necessary. The clear message through this sign is that we consumption in that generation was a problem. After speaking with Professor Pence about this sign, she also showed me the irony in this little joke. EATING THE APPLE IS CONSUMING! But what the difference is, is that we are seeing a seperation of consumption, a “healthy” way of consuming too. The underlying message in this is that consumption is a necessity, but there is a line drawn at what is considered to be necessary or a “healthy” consumption and this new type of capitslist consumption. This message also relates to one of Gramsci’s quotes where he says “The Crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new can not be born” again he is stating how the new generation does not know what things are really necessary in life and can not see what their corruption is-Consumption.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=ad88d0470f&view=att&th=14112a4614de772e&attid=0.0&disp=inline&safe=1&zw

Take a second to look at the men and women featured prominently in the picture I’ve posted below. While I cannot pretend to know with utmost certainty, if I was a betting man, I would wager these men and women have never been considered nor considered themselves to be artists in the conventional sense of the word. These are people that live in the housing projects of the South Bronx, a generally low-income area where most residents are working class or even unemployed. And yet somehow when these residents enter the alternate reality that is Thomas Hirschhorn’s ‘Gramsci Monument’, they transform into highly lauded “Residents of the Day”, complete with an accompanying photograph of them standing proudly next to whatever it is they contributed to the monument personally. And make no mistake about it, as whatever the conventional sense of the word may be is irrelevant, for these people are undoubtedly artists. They may have never put a brush to a canvas, nor written a line of philosophy, but they’ve helped add life to the living, breathing piece of art that is the Gramsci Monument. 

Josh Kurman