Intro to Art

April 7, 2003

AIC visit date and time:

March 21, 2003 at 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm

Mode of Transportation: Metra

 

            On March 21, 2003 at 12:00 pm I went to The Art Institute of Chicago.  There were quite a few paintings that caught my attention, but two paintings stood out.  The two paintings had to deal with rebuilding a new life[MR1] .

            The first painting is The Movings by Louis Leopold Biolly painted in 1822.  He was a French painter that lived from 1761 to 1845.  The painting is located on the second floor in Gallery 222 on the south side of the building[MR2] .  The Movings is 28 inches by 36 inches and it stands 4 1\2 feet from the floor.  The frame is gold and has a crack on the bottom right about an inch in a half.  It has his [MR3]  name in the front of the painting in black ink.  The second painting is The Rock by Peter Blume painted over a period of four years starting in 1944.  He was an American-surrealist painter, but born in Russia.  Blume lived from 1906 to 1992.  This painting is [MR4] located on the second floor in Gallery 244 on the north side of the building.  The Rock is 36 inches by 46 inches and it stands about 3 feet from the floor.  The frame is gold with speckled painted spots.  Both paintings are painted on canvas with oil.

            Biolly’s painting takes place around the end of May [MR5] in the evening because the sun is setting.  Men, women, children, and animals are moving through the streets of Paris.  They have come from the provinces and are trying to have a better life in Paris. I read the painting from right to left[MR6] .  This painting has Caucasian men and women.  The men are standing by a black carriage socializing[MR7] .  A man is standing up carrying a mattress and thin blankets on his back with a wood stick in his hand for support[MR8] .  A [MR9] man [MR10] looks like he is taking a break, but is very angry and tired.  A woman [MR11]  is sitting down on the ground with a red scarf on her head.  She is holding a light brown cat in her left hand and petting a brown and white dog with her right hand.  The lady standing next to the woman with the cat had some bottles in a basket looking around with her daughter.  She had on a white skirt with a blue shirt.  Her daughter had on a tan jacket and brown pants. The daughter has a white drinking cup and bag in her hand.   A [MR12] man with a torn shirt at his shoulder is struggling to pull his wagon.  In his wagon he had a white mattress, a wooden chair and some brown boards.  On the other side of his wagon, a man and woman are trying to help him move it.  A man [MR13] around his thirties with dark hair is wiping his neck after he took off his hat.  There is a brown horse pulling a wagon with chairs, wood of some type, a broom, a basket and mattress filled with hay.  The man with green coat standing by the horse is in charge of the horse[MR14] .  The black dog [MR15] is under the wagon with a leash around his neck.  On top of the wagon a woman is sitting on a mattress with her baby holding a birdcage.  To the left of the painting there is a man walking on the side of his wagon.  He has two tired dogs pulling his wagon with his belongings.  The buildings where people stay are brown with windows[MR16] .  An old man and woman are walking towards the buildings in Paris.  The man is carrying a paint stand[MR17] .  Some women are standing by a long wooden table by the Church of Santa Maria.  The Church of Santa Maria has statues of people at the top. 

            Biolly made the clouds white so you that it will be a clear day[MR18] .  The sun is setting further in the back.  There are no bright colors in the painting; it is different colors of brown.  You can see how he uses rectangles in the windows of the building.

            I can identify with the daughter standing by her mother.  The reason is because I always stood by my mother when I was her age.  I would be very exhausted and ready to go to sleep and start my day over.  I would like to visit Paris because it is a different place from [WHAT NOT  where I am use to[MR19] .

            Blume’s painting takes place around the beginning of April at nighttime [MR20] and looks like it is about to rain. I read this painting from the center and then everything around it[MR21] .  The rock is in the center of the painting.  There is a large red broken rock sitting on some kind of support.  It is supported by the solid ground of the Earth.  The rock looks like it has been decayed.  Beside the rock there are broken bones of an animal and a red flower[MR22] .  Around the rock there are Caucasian woman and men[MR23] , an African man.  The woman looks like she is trying to hold up the support of the rock and one Caucasian man is shoveling the dirt by the rock. A Caucasian man is breaking the stone; an African man and two Caucasian men are moving stones to rebuild their city.  You can look at the men and see that they are working hard. One man [MR24] eye was popping out and his muscle is [MR25] showing.  A Caucasian man is working by a red brick house that is halfway torn down by an old fire.  There is a picture of an old lady hanging on the wall in the house[MR26] .  The Coca Cola sign is by a broken glass and a wire.   There is smoke rising in the air where the man is working.  The far left of the painting the men are in the building putting stones in place.  There are two men pulling up stones with a rope connected to the stones.  The right side of the painting the sky is dark and on the left it gets a little lighter.  The sun is setting in the back of the painting.

Talking about Georges Seurat’s painting in class made me see three primary colors in The Rock, which are red, blue and yellow.  You see the red flower, and the inside of the rock.  The sky is blue and the dirt is a yellowish color.  On the rock you can see triangular shapes[MR27] .

I can identify with the Caucasian man further in the back trying to rebuild because I like to work with my hands building things.  I would be frustrated because I would have to clean up what someone else has destroyed.  This is not a place I would want to visit because he drew this during World War II and people had to worry about the destruction of there [MR28] property.

I decided [MR29] these two painting because they are struggling to rebuild to put their lives back together.  Both paintings have a few things in common.   The sun setting in both are in the far back of the painting.  The Moving [MR30] struggles to move their [MR31] belongings on the streets of Paris.  The Rock struggles to rebuild their city that has been destroyed[MR32] .  The paintings show the people are tired and ready to rest.  They know they can not rest because they have to get done. 

The reason I chose to write about The Moving was because it reminded me of the Pilgrims and how they dressed.  I chose The Rock because the color and how he had the sun setting and the sky looking dark at the same time[MR33] .  If I worked at the AIC I would have to get rid of The Moving because The Rock shows them working harder trying to get their city back together[MR34] .

Overall, I think this experience was difficult for because it takes me longer to analyze a painting[MR35] .  By taking Intro to Art I have learned to be patient and look at the painting instead of someone telling about the paint[MR36] . ….

X~, I COULD JUST GIVE YOU A LOW GRADE, BUT I KNOW YOU WOULD BENEFIT BY TRYING TO REVISE THIS DRAFT..SO…I’M GOING TO PUT THESE TWO PAINTINGS ON A WEBSITE < http://english.sxu.edu/~mrabe/aic/boilly_blume.htm>. TRY TO ADD AN INTERPRETATION OF BOTH…ONE IS A MORE STRAIGHT FORWARD HISTORY PAINTING, AND THE OTHER SYMBOLIC OF REBUILDING AFTER WAR…ASK THE TUTOR TO LOOK ON LINE AND HELP YOU COME UP WITH A MEANING FOR THE BIG BROKEN RED ROCK THAT THAT WOMAN MAY EVEN BE WORSHIPPING!<GRADE[MR37] >

 

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 [MR1]THEY SAY PARAGRAPHS SHOULD BE LONGER THAN JUST 2 SENTENCES.  WHAT ELSE COULD YOU SAY BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION TO THIS PAPER AND ITS FOCUS, PURPOSE?….THE RATIONALE SOUNDS INTERESTING, THOUGH

 [MR2]NORTH SIDE OF THE BUIDLING BUT SOUTH WALL OF THE ROOM!

 [MR3] WHOSE? ANTECEDENT REFERENCE IS TOO FAR BACK

 [MR4] ALSO

 [MR5] HOW CAN YOU TELL THE MONTH?

 [MR6] WHY THE _WRONG _ WAY?

 [MR7] WHICH ONE? I SEE 3 OR 4 CARTS PILED HIGH

 [MR8] SAY WHERE. FAR RIGHT FOREGROUND?

 [MR9] NEXT STANDS…

 [MR10] WHO

 [MR11] YOUNG GIRL?

 [MR12] WHERE IN RELATION TO THE OTHERS?

 [MR13] AGAIN, YOU NEED TO CONNECT EACH PART WITH THE OTHERS BY GIVING A LOCATION IN RELATION TO THE OTHERS

 [MR14] SAY “IT”,  NOT “the horse” AGAIN.

 [MR15] WRONG USE OF DEFINITE ARTICLE, “THE” BEFORE ITS INTRODUCED

 [MR16] WHERE ARE THEY?  SEE RUBRIC, WHERE I SAID TO WALK US THROUGH FROM LEFT FRONT TO BACK RIGHT…

 [MR17] AGAIN WHERE ARE THEY IN RELATION TO OTHERS. THE TERM IS EASEL

 [MR18] ANY BLUE SKY? YES…SO MENTION IT TOO

 [MR19] “from WHAT (NOT ‘where’) I am useD to.”

 [MR20] ? I SEE BLUE SKY, SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS ON THE ROCK

 [MR21] OKAY—GOOD POINT, THAT IS WHERE THE ARTIST DRAWS YOUR ATTENTION FIRST

 [MR22] MORE DESCRIPTIVE DETAIL WOULD HELP

 [MR23] AND

 [MR24] MAN‘S

 [MR25] MUSCLES ARE”

 [MR26] AGAIN, YOU’VE LEFT OUT THE DIRECTIONAL INFORMATION

 [MR27] TRY TO LINK YOUR IDEAS TOGETHER, NOT A BUNCH OF ISOLATED STRAY FACTS

 [MR28] THEIR

 [MR29] TO CHOOSE, OR TO COMPARE

 [MR30] IS ABOUT

 [MR31] NO ANTECEDENT

 [MR32] WRONG GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT

 [MR33] THESE ARE UNRELATED IDEAS….

 [MR34] SAY MORE; WHY NOT TRY TO GIVE  AN INTEREPRETATION OF BOTH…WHAT IS THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ROCK?

 [MR35] LONGER THAN WHAT?

 [MR36] NOT A GRAMMATICAL SENTENCE

 [MR37] INCOMPLETE FOR NOW.