art

The first piece that caught my eye was Edgar Degas’ the tub. Edgar Degas was a French artist who lived from 1834 to 1917 and this bronze statue was molded in 1889 then finally cast in-between 1919 and 1921. What drew me in was the water in the tub. It just seemed like a very difficult thing to translate into bronze. When I think of baths I think of relaxing by yourself and just having some alone time. This is contrasted with the fact that we the viewers (or others) are not supposed to be there viewing this intimate bath. We get a candid look at what she looks like when there’s no one around. If I were to walk in on her taking a bath, no matter what our relationship is, it would change her demeanor and body language. That is what I think this piece is all about, a candid view of a woman enjoying a nice bath.

I found it so fascinating that in-between all these pictures of old, fat, ugly, rich people Edouard Manet ( a French painter born 1832 died 1883) would have not one but two paintings of beggars. What drew me in was the out stretched hand. This is a situation we have all encountered before, some one asking for change. The other depicted in the painting is the person he’s trying to pan handle or us in the audience. Society doesn’t consider the homeless as people so we avert our eyes and turn up our ipods. So in some ways the beggar himself doesn’t have a self. Most likely the change he gets goes to self medicate himself and since alcohol is a depressant more than likely he doesn’t consider himself a person either. As I read more about the artist it described that Manet had done a whole string of pictures of beggars and debuted them at the same time and called them the ‘Philosopher’ series. I like how just by looking at one painting you could get led to others and a whole story unfolds. The piece is so radical it makes you want to learn more.

I decided to choose one piece of art that I already knew by one of my favorite artists, Venus de Milo by Salvador Dali. I wanted to do this to experience what it's like to see a piece of art you're familiar with in person. The piece is a sculpture of the greek goddess Venus with drawers and pom-poms. I like this piece because it's a familiar statue but then you look at it again and see Dali's 'improvements'. I like Dali because like him I consider my art and self to be post-modern. Post-modern being weird for the sake of weird. When I saw Venus in person it was bigger than I imagined and I was struck at how much attention to detail there was in this plaster sculpture. It looked like a 3/4 replica a little smaller than an average woman (I believe the original was larger than a female) and it reminded me of the mannequins my mother and sister had around the house when I was growing up (they're both artists and fans of Dali) and I could totally see Venus in my room now filled with socks, tools and guitar strings. I like that you can use the art and I had a very hard time not touching it and opening the drawers although I