Museum Visit

For my trip to the museum, I chose to go to the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I have been to a good amount of museums, but I wasn't expecting this museum to be as amazing as it was. I was assuming it would just be a bunch of boring art work, but it was far from that! The first thing I saw when I walked into the museum was a giant "sand dune" looking piece of art and after seeing that I was very excited for the rest of the museum!

The sections of the museum I went through were: The Art of the Americas, Native American Art, Art of Africa, and Photography. As I went through each section, nothing seized to amaze me, every piece of art told some sort of story and all the artwork was filled with great detail.

There were several pieces of art that really jumped out at me for different reasons, one being the Openwork Spirit Board made by the Sawos people. It is in the shape of a mini surf board. There was hornbill birds carved into the wood piece that symbolized fertility. There was also a beetle carved into it and it's nose went into a pair of bird wings. When I look at the wood piece I mostly just see swirls carved into it, but after reading the paragraph about it I learned there was much more to it than swirls. It had a story behind it. The detail was amazing!

This is a piece of art that is made out of bullets, guns, shells, etc. I found this very neat because there is not one thing that isn't related to a gun in this art piece. I couldnt imagine how long it would take someone to built such a magnificant building out of only gun materials.

Undirected Blog #3

In chapter six, there is a picture of the Tomb of the Reliefs and it is magnificent! The detail the Romans put into this tomb is remarkable. Many things in the tomb is made out of rock. They used rock so that it would look more like the inside of a house. They carved couches out of stone and they used stucco to create pots, jugs, sculptures, etc to hang on the pilars in the tomb. They even molded a dog to represent the family dog. It is amazing that the Romans could create such great details out of rocks and stone. They put so much time and effort to build these tombs, which goes to show how much they cared about their people and kings. It boggles my mind to think how long it must have taken them to build these tombs. Not only are they beautiful which much detail, but they are huge! I wish we still built tombs like these because they are beautiful to look at and have such strong meaning behind them.

Undirected Blog #2

The Pediment sculptures found in The Parthenon are very amazing pieces of artwork. The greek artist did a great job on the detail of the people and dress they wore. The Parthenon had many sculptures in the temple, but the sculptures I find the most interesting are the figures of the greek gods. The sculptures on the east pediment of The Parthenon were damaged over the years and it makes it difficult to know exactly who the sculptures are of. However, people have made a logical guess on who the people in the sculpture might be. There are 3 women figures who they say must be goddesses such as; Hestia, Dione, and Aphrodite. The man figure is assumed to be either Herakles or Dionysos. Also it is fastenating that people can discover that the woman figure running is "spreading news of Atehna's birth". I find it interesting that even though these sculptures are missing heads, arms, and legs, we are still able to create a story line behind all of the figures. The sculptures are telling us a story through their centuries of being on this Earth.

About Me--Part 2

The houses in the Skara Brae village were well constructed and very closely resemble the houses we live in today. They were built with a corbeling technique, which is when flat stones are stacked upon each other to create layers that form the walls of the houses. These houses had simple furniture to leave more space in the rooms. The rooms had; stone beds that had furs to keep the people warm, they built storage above each bed, and cabinets to store their household belongings. Although their houses were fairly simple, they were built with much thought and precise placing of each stone. It is very interesting to see that these houses are a lot like the houses we live in, even though the Skara Brea houses were built in 3100-2600 BCE. The inside of our houses are so much alike; with the placement of furniture, storage, and how the structures are built. However, the houses we live in today are not as simple as the Skara Brae houses, our houses have more decorations and creativity. I like knowing that even though we have a huge gap between our times, we have a lot in common when it comes to our living styles.

About Me

I chose the Woman of Willendorf to relate to for a few different reasons. This piece of art resembles womens' figures and the beauty of women thousands and thousands of years ago. The artist made the Woman of Willendorf have curves and that was the way in which women were considered pretty was with the curves they had. The Woman of Willendorf is the strongest representation of femininity. Ever since I was little, I have always tried to portray the perfect female form and have always wanted to be very feminine. I have always thought that the most important thing for me is to have children. Being a mother is a very important part of being a woman and this statue shows that. This statue is a very good representation of women and what the perfect female would be.

The second piece of art I chose to relate to is the Lascaux cave paintings. These painting are very popular and were a big attraction during World War II. The artists painted many animals; cows, horses, bulls, bears, felines, and deer. Everything they painted was full of energy and was very lively. They used a painting technique called "twisted perspective", which is where the head and bodies are in profile and may be exaggerated. I can relate to these paintings because in my free time I like to express my feelings and thoughts by drawing. Most of my drawings do not make sense, but they represent my life and the way I feel. It is as though my drawings tell a story about my life.