The Starry Night is well-known art work by Vincent van Gogh. This art work reminds me the moment when I came to the U.S. I arrived in JFK airport, and it was midnight. I was afraid of being in New York without my family and friends as well as my heart was hardly beating with a full of hope. I think I could even hear my heart beats at the moment. The night, I came out from the airport, and looked at the sky; it was a clear, dark sky with a few of twinkle stars. I took a cab with a deep breath, and many memories were brought back in rapid succession.

The Starry Night was painted when Vincent van Gogh were in a hospital, a landscape through the window. When I see The Starry Night, I feel lonely; I definitely not only see the delightful color scheme, but also the loneliness of the night. The thought of The Starry Night seems the moment when I came to the city. It coexist with the expectation for studying abroad and living in a new world, as well as the loneliness for being apart from my people.

Soyon Ahn

I love art. Simple. No questions there. I have always found myself marveled by a human’s ability to create something so beautiful, so unreal. Or maybe that’s just because I have zero artistic ability whatsoever. Anyways, I was really excited to go to the MoMa and see the art there since I love some of their pieces, but instead of choosing something I loved, I decided to give in to my true opinions.

Mary Heilmann’s piece, Tehachapi I and II, (I shown below) is simply a piece of canvas painted black and pink, with a filled in box in the inside. Although this piece didn’t have a price tag, her other similar pieces are selling for $5,000. Let’s backtrack for a minute – roughly $5,000 for a painting that is one color, with an alternate color block on the inside? Excuse me while I run to Michaels to purchase some materials and paint a blob.

Please don’t assume that my critics are because of my lack of knowledge in the modern art world, for I have been lectured and have studied this form of art for a long time. Yet, I always come up with the same response: this is not art. There’s nothing special nor moving or remotely life changing about this piece, yet she’s and other artists are famous for utilizing their 3 year old drawing abilities.

Since there is no information on the piece online or at the MoMa itself, I have been left to believe that if I paint circles on a piece of canvas in various colors then I can sell it for enough money to cover my rent and buy a pair of priced shoes.

I was amazed by this painting of Alice Neel, I found it very similar to Frederick Douglass and Frankenstein’ stories. At a first view you can see the lack of human connection discussed in both books. In this art work, the main character, the man who is reading the book, has knowledge which it represented by the light and the book. Hi has power and is above all the other character. He doesn’t pay attention to anybody around him. The same thing is represented by the two white couple in the picture. They don’t care about all the misery that surrounds them. Even though there is a dead body on the street, nobody seems concern about it. When compared to the Narrative of life of Douglass, during the slavery the master slaves    did not care about the suffering   that they caused. This man can represented the master slaves who used their knowledge (the fact they can read and write) to take advantage of the slaves. The ghosts that are at the bottom of the painting can be matched up to the slaves who became lifeless people due to the treatment they received from the oppressors.  Another thing that related this picture to the Douglass’s book is the baby left alone without his or her parents to guide him or her.  This familial detachment makes him or her vulnerable so he or this dark heart man can manipulate him or her as he wants.

The relationship that I found between Shirley’s book and Neel’s painting is based on the advice that Frankenstein gave to the readers. He said that people have to be careful t about the knowledge they are seeking after. This man apparently knows things but he does not use it positively. Another similarity resides in the monster that Frankenstein created. He was on his own, without anybody to teach good things. He learnt everything by himself.  It is the same for the baby who will have to be self-taught. A innocent human being can become a bad person by the future experiences or lifeless, terrified, oppressed person as a slave or Frankenstein’s creature.

Valerie Dorisca

My first impression for “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh is powerful. This painting gives me the feeling of infinite life. In fact, by looking at the real painting is very different from looking at the internet. I had a much stronger feeling toward this painting by observing in front of it. In my own perspective, I can see that this painting depicts the nature, life and death. In addition, this painting shows Van Gogh’s observation toward the country from his window. Vincent van Gogh also includes his imagination, memory and emotion into this painting. According to Van Gogh’s passion toward this painting, I can feel the contradiction of his life. Vincent van Gogh paints his painting in a time before sunrise, therefore he includes the morning star in his painting. This painting shows the dark and light as death and life. According from Vincent van Gogh, he uses the star and moon to represent the sun as light. Since at night, there is only darkness, but under the star and moon, we can still see the whole country. Furthermore, the stars represent the hope that we have in our life. On the other side, the enormous tree in this painting represents his entire life. Vincent van Gogh uses himself as a tree to compare to the infinite sky and star. Van Gogh indicates that his life will living along with the nature forever. The way that Van Gogh paints his painting by swirling the sky and stars give me a feeling of mystification. For example, we living in this world, often find ourselves lost our dream and hope. So the purpose of the star is to create light at nighttime that leads us to find our way out in darkness. Meanwhile, this swirling sky and stars also give me a feeling of eternity. Therefore this painting is vary to different people by how they view this painting. In fact, there is no real meaning in this painting. Everyone has different experience toward their life, therefore the real meaning of this painting is base on their own thought.

Zhenhua Hong

The Sleeping Gypsy (MoMa)

“The Sleeping Gypsy” is a famous painting by Henri Rousseau (french, 1844-1910). The painter describes his work a”A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar besides her ( a vase with drinking water), overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by, picks up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic.”

This piece of work is really simple at first sight but it carries so much meaning within it, and it gives a lot of emotion because of the little details that are expressed in the painting; the colors, the setting, THE CHARACTERS, and as I said before the little details that one might not has noticed make this a very powerful painting.

I would like to tell a little bit how Gypsies and Lions are viewed in my culture. Since early ages Gypsies are believed to be involved with black magic, and kidnapping babies and children which makes us all very cautious towards them, I remember since I was little my mother told me not to look in their eyes since they also had a power to hypnotize people, meanwhile Lions are brave, strong-spirited animals that no one can mess with.

When I look at the painting I see a gypsy lying down, with an unbothered look on her face. Seems to me like she is in a deep sleep, having beautiful dreams but what’s most she feels safe. She has those little objects with her that make it look like she’s been traveling and stopped by that sea,I think , to rest. She is approached by a lion. His tail is up and tensed, the look on his face is vigilant and heedful. He also seems to be in a state of unknowigness which gives a sensation of alertness.

In my opinion the setting is very beautiful and gives that piece a nice charm  that makes it whole. It looks so dreamy around them like a place I would want to spend a night at, just looking up at the moon and the stars.

I believe that having these two characters in one painting is pretty much epic.

“The Starry Night” is a popular piece of art painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1889. Just from the name of it, one can assume the beauty of the artwork. The painting consists of a gigantic crescent moon in the sky hovering over a calm and peaceful town along with elegant stars emitting a miniature glow accompanied by a swirling cloud. The town also seems to be located alongside some small sized hills and it tends to be isolating itself from the rest of the world which may reflect its tranquility. The painting itself are composed of many lines as one can see that sky consists of lines, the hills, and even the rooftops of the houses. However, the appearance of the sky appears to be more hectic compared to the peaceful town and this produces a divergence within the painting. One half is the night sky with a large whirly cloud that disrupts the beauty of the moon and stars. Meanwhile, the other half is the quiet town that lies beneath the sky and is secluded by the hills. In fact, this perspective can be very relevant to the time it was painted around. The Gilded Age was a period in American history that ranged from the 1870s to the 1900 and 1889, the year that “The Starry Night” was painted happens to fall into this range. Therefore, “The Starry Night” can very much reflect the aspects of the Gilded Age. During the Gilded Age, the economy boomed and people were acquiring great wealth; however, the political system was very much corrupted. The idea and the events of the Gilded Age can well be represented by van Gogh’s painting. The prosperity acquired during the Gilded Age could be depicted as the peaceful town while the political corruption can be represented by the night sky that shadows the town. The political corruption can also be portrayed by the dark figure that is on the left side of the painting which was determined to be a cypress bush. When I first saw the dark figure, I automatically assumed it was something mysterious and dark perhaps a church or an abandoned building until it made out to be some type of tree due to the swirly structure. In fact, the line work for the bush is similar to the sky as it was painted with many linear strokes that form the swirly structure. This bush disrupts the equilibrium of the painting that van Gogh presents us and it appears directly in front of everything else hovering over both the sky and town just like how the political corruption during the Gilded Age was shadowing the fact that everyone was acquiring a great amount of wealth and living better lives. One can briefly describe this painting as “the calm before the storm,” where the night sky can be portray the storm coming forth the peaceful town. Nevertheless, Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” is still considered a beautiful piece of work even up until this day; however, his true motives for creating this painting still remain unknown.

Maribel Peralta

ENG 2850-KTA

10/23/2015

The picture that I choose for this assignment was a picture illustrated by Diego Rivera in 1914 it is called Young Man in a Gray Sweater (Jacques Lipchitsz). To begin talking about this picture I would like to mention the reason why it stood out to me. The person who made the picture actually has my soon to be marriage name Rivera, seeing that in black on the bottom right hand corner automatically sparked my interest. Naturally I wanted to know more about the artist himself so that it can help me understand the picture and its meaning. Successfully I did, I learned that this type of picture is a form of cubism which is a style of abstract art. This type of art uses shapes, colors and different formats to create an illusion of an image. In this picture it happened to be a young man in a gray sweater. From the point of view where I was standing I felt  like I could see a blurred image of this character from multiple angles. The black and gray colors are spread throughout the image to make it feel more dimensional than it actually is. The colored stripes on the sides help me create a point to stop trying to piece together the shapes that construct the image of his face. The multiple dimensions also give the image a dark tone and feel. The gray crackled rectangle in the middle of the image helps me center the opposing faces. On the left side of the image it looks like the young man is making a serious and stern face with the eyebrow shadow being shown in a high arch. It also seems as if the hands fingers might have been entangled together. On the right side the face looks more relaxed. The eyebrow as well as the eye look more opened and not as tense. He also makes the right side brighter adding more shades of white to the gray colored shape in its bottom right corner.  This made me feel as if the Young man in the Gray sweater may have had a good and a bad side as many individuals do in this world that we live in. To me Diego Rivera captured that beautifully in this image, I really enjoyed looking at it.

While visiting the Painting and Sculpture 1 gallery in the Museum of Modern Art, I came across the painting called “Woman Plaiting Her Hair” by Pablo Picasso. It was created in the year of 1906. This painting was painted during Picasso’s Rose Period. During that period, his paintings were more about the happiness and joy he personally experienced in his life. The personal change in his life was influenced from his relationship. Knowing that, the first thing that comes to my mind is that this is probably a reason why his painting was focused on a woman. From my understanding, Picasso perhaps tried to portray women in a very delicate and calm manner. He used light warm looking colors, nothing too bright. He painted the woman in a very detailed manner showing the curvy and feminine side of a woman. There’s something very peaceful about this painting, especially because there’s not too much going on and none of the colors are overly powerful. Therefore, the main focus on this painting goes to the woman itself. It shows feminism at its best because of the bare body of the woman in the canvas, her long beautiful hair, and the way she is sitting and plaiting her hair. It shows a very real and personal scene with things that a female can relate to by looking at this painting. Such as all the physical attributes the woman possess and the act of her braiding her hair. It seems as if the woman is comfortable in her own skin and looks very relaxed sitting in that position and being bare skinned. Although the woman has no expression on her face, she still looks innocent, calm, feminine, and beautiful. This painting may have a lot of ways of looking at it, but what I loved the most about it is the simplicity and realistic side of it. That is why it caught my attention.

Ekramul

In Museum of Modern Art, I was attracted by a painting named Dance. Dance was an extraordinary work of Henri Matisse which was created in 1909. Actually, Henri Matisse was a really famous artist during 20^th century. But not many people can understand and appreciate his works. Matisse’s work could not be connected to the traditional linear perspective. Therefore, the spatial depth in his painting was not that obvious. Also, he used flat but bold colors in his painting. The method and the theory he had in painting made him a successful Fauvism. Although Fauvism only existed for approximately 4 years, it had a deep impact on the development of modern art.

Henri Matisse was born in 1869, and he was extremely attracted to paint when he was 21 years old. According to his own word, he was summoned. After that, he was no longer dominated by himself. It was painting which dominated him. Dance was one of the most successful and famous work of him. It was oil on canvas and intended to hang on a staircase landing at Shchukin’s Trubeskoy Palace. Matisse painted it quickly and gave it as a gift to Nelson A. Rockefeller in honor of Alfred H. Barr.

The painting describes five women figures holds each other’s hands and dance in a circle. There are only three colors used in this painting, blue, green and bronze. Matisse simplified all the structures, making his work more powerful. Blue represents the sky; green represents the ground; and bronze represents healthy, beauty and strength of these dancing women. He used these colors to express his subjective world. The whole painting created a harmonious and energetic atmosphere. From this painting, people are not constrained by the rules and serious structures. This work let us have free imagination and creative thinking. These women may dance around a bonfire to celebrate for a ceremony. They may just express their happiness for the long term friendship. Anyway, the cheerful and simple painting express energetic lives.

Art is subjective. Although the author created his work for certain purpose, different people see it differently. As far as I am concerned, this painting was painted in a particular time and it could connect with the war. It was created in the middle of World War I. Dance may include some best wishes for the world. The mother earth divided into five plates. During the World War I, people in the world fought each other. There were no mercy and sympathy among them. Maybe this passionate painting expresses Matisse’s sincerely hope that people in five plates can hold each other’s hand and do not start a war any more. Only in that way could people around the world have peaceful and happy lives.

Dance was apparently not a exquisite work. We can still see the rough black lines and irregular boundaries in this painting. However, these characters made Dance a masterpiece. Matisse was an spectacular innovator who made his painting with a sense of nature.

Zhao Wang