Blog Post #5 - Reader Response Mini Essay

      Do you ever hear the phrase that a ‘picture can main meaning many words’?  Many time, when people go to the museum, observe carefully  to a specific object, they  can feel different emotions about it. The article The Power of Art in Society” by Deborah Barr, discusses how a piece of art can emphasize in  specific topic in our society and how it diffuses the meaning to the world like others  mediums of communication. I strongly agree with the author opinion because a piece of art can diffuses a clear, specific and relevant message to our society.

      Barr emphasizes than a pieces of art can have more impact in our society than a sophisticated writing. The reason why people can found themselves  more interested in a piece of art than a writing is because art has a lot of accent in a topic. For example, the color of the object, the designer, the material, the lines the author uses to focus our attention in a specific angle are some of these things than made art more deeper than a writing.

       As we know, there is some art called Art for Social Causes in which the author give a judgment about his point of view in a particular subject such as cultural, political and social enrollments.

      In conclusion, the power of art has more impact in our society because people can use their imagination  and literally read between  the imagines or art work.

Post # 4 - Met Museum Paper

            Egyptian religious believes in life after the death. The preservation of the human body was essential to this culture. Bodies of the most important people in this society were embalmed, putting in a sarcophagus that was special elaborate to them. They were buried in a pyramid or in under the ground tombs.

      The mummification is the preservation of a body, either animal or human. The death body became a mummy by embalming and drying. Egyptians believe than the mummy can be alive again by doing different rituals mention in the Book of the Dead. However, to keep the body alive, they embalm and desiccate it.  In the embalm process the Egyptian remove all the organs of the body accept the heart. Then Egyptians collocate it in a sarcophagus decorate with a characteristic physics of the person.

     The Egyptian sarcophagi are different to others in many aspects. A common coffin of these days is a square and does not as much designer as an Egyptian sarcophagus.  The Egyptian sarcophagi were fashionable with a great body structure that looks like a tridimensional pharaoh statue. They were made of solid gold or plate, stone and sometimes wood. Around it, there are many painting in the body that showed the history of the pharaoh or an exemplification of things than the pharaoh did.  Egyptians were carving and painting the pharaoh face in the sarcophagus.

     Sarcophagus of Horkhebit is an example of funerary box made of  solid limestone bedrock. It  were shaped to a resemble the human form with a carved head of  Royal Seal Beare. The body has hieroglyphic base on the Papyrus. This coffin is a sixty feed deep tomb of Horkhebit who was a "Royal Seal Bearer, Sole Companion, Chief Priest of the Shrines of Upper and Lower Egypt, and Overseer of the Cabinet"

Citation

"Sarcophagus of Horkhebit [Egyptian; From Saqqara] (07.229.1ab)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/07.229.1ab (October 2006)

Practice Post #4 - Evaluating Art

Seated Statue of Hatshepsut

         

     I chose to research this gorgeous statue which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The reason why I picked this is because I think women and men are equal, they have the same qualities, and they can play the same role in the society. This statue is the representation of a woman who is pharaoh.

      According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.3.2), this sculpture emphasizes the pharaoh role playing by male with feminine air. The statue remarks “the most successful of several female rulers of ancient Egypt, declared herself king sometime between years 2 and 7 of the reign of her stepson and nephew, Thutmose III.

Reference

"Hatshepsut [Egyptian; From Deir el-Bahri, western Thebes] (29.3.2)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.3.2 (October 2006)

AMNH Paper

Introduction to Art HUA101 3309

OCT 17, 2011

 American museum of Natural History

         In the book “Prebles’ Artforms”, the author Patrick Frank in chapter one emphasizes that long time ago different cultures uses art for worship and ritual.  Many society practice art to decorate some clothes, to make some arm that help them to survive to develop their skills to create beautiful object used to player in some ceremonies. At this time art was something to uses and made it beautiful. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanis) defines Shamanism as a kind of traditional and religious beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. There are many variations in shamanism all around the world, all of them with the principle in which spirits plays the most important the role in human lives. In America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, we can hear about the Shamanism, a culture than travel around the world and make their own folk art.

          The shamanism trusts that shamans affecting the spirit restore the physical body of each individual of this society. They believe that spirit are their directors and advises them any situation. Dreaming about their future, visualizing and predicting inexplicable things are some the directions of  this knowledge that the soul restore passes to them.

         The shaman’s social role has many functions such as leading a sacrifice, therapeutic, leader, and teacher. In some cultures, their behavior, rights and obligations can be diverse; they depend of each cultural social status and position. For example, the shaman who has dreams or visions and his dream can tell confident things can be set as wiser. Others who do not have these qualities can be used as maintaining the tradition by memorizing songs and tales.

           The shaman never stop learning, these culture has special priority to education of their members. They collect all the knowledge, increase it and use it for the good of their community. Shamanism is traditionally an oral teaching. By memorizing song and remember tales the shaman teacher teach children to learn everything about their culture.

        Animal has a very essential role in these society, animals symbolize the unknown and influence of the natural world, which can create or destroy. Shaman has faith in that animals are the representation of animal spirit guides. In addition, animal bring the food, clothing and some tool.  Native American depended of the buffalo. It was their main food. Native American made tipis, clothing and tools  from the bones and  the skin of the buffalo. The tool helped them to  haunt others animals. The clothes and the tipis were decorated by them.  The men of this society were creative in their clothes and tipis because they have more contact with the nature reason why their art is more realistic. They described stories in their clothes like how they haunted the buffalo. On the other hand, the women of these tribe had less creativity. They did not show stories on the robes. Their art loos are more abstract (se figure #1, it is a representation of how art made by men and women look).

         Ritual and ceremonies are in honor to their soul restores. In the anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. XVI, Part VII The Sun Dance of the Plains Indian: Its development and Diffusion by Leslie Spier, describes who native people prepare themselves to execute The Sun Dance ceremony which is one of the most famous ceremonies around the world. In this ceremony, people dancer for three or four day and nights from a circle and dance individually to the tree in the center.(see figure #2, this is a representation of the Sun Dance Ceremony) Each dancer walks to the tree and say a prayer for others. They give tobacco or corn to the tree which it is the Great Spirit.  During the Sun Dance, the dancer does not have to eat and drink anything because the principal propose of it is to demonstrate the ability of intend. The ceremony context for the dancer is to develop as fast and extremely  the primary shaman power. What makes an individual a shaman is the ability of never give up.

In short, the shaman art folk art is good example of art for worship and ritual, it show us a lot of thing about this culture and the similitudes of all of their variables around the world.

References

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanis

The anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. XVI, Part VII The Sun Dance of the Plains Indian: Its development and Diffusion

Leslie Spier

Practice Post #4 - Evaluating Art

Artist: Frida Kahlo

Formal evaluation: Kahlo painted herself in a frontal pose to enhance her presence. She used nature to emphasize her image and to provide harmony. Her technique was unique and innovative because she used her own unique folkloric style of painting.

Contextual evaluation:  Kahlo painted   around 200 painting, drawing and sketches related her experiences of life like she was wrote a diary in each painting she expressed her life and her feeling.  

Expressive evaluation: Kahlo uses her Mexican culture to symbolic many things in her painting. For example, in Mexican folk tradition, dead hummingbirds were used as charms to bring luck to love, black cat is a symbol bad luck or death, and butterflies represent the resurrection.

Blog Post #2 - Cave Art 101

               In the past, ancestors found many way to survive in their society; for example, they developed agriculture and hunting as their ways to survive.  In addition, they used their imagination to create new instrument than help them to persist.  They painted and drew in their caves which were their houses. Many painting such as the Wall Painting of Animal, the Deer and Hands, and Engraved Ochre help us to understand more about our past, they showed how ancestors used their creativity and express their feeling. In last class, the main point was to focus in the way to survive in life in this society. Each classmate enjoyed one group and each group discussed their points of view and put them together in an art piece.  Each one of my classmate experienced how to make the colors with chalk and charcoal as ancestors made color with animal’ fat and flowers. After each group finished the art piece, one member explained the painting to the class using the topic as their references. In conclusion, I can say that the class was fun,   the way the classes focused help us to understand better the topic.