Final Winter Week #10 Post #9

A Look Back at What I Enjoyed Most This Quarter 

Two girls dressing a kitten by candlelight

During this quarter, I felt at times lost within all the grand art created during the time periods we looked at. All were fabulous and splendid, but either I had seen them all before too many times, or rather I hadn't seen them, but they didnt interest me much as to how they were created or the background behind them. Aside from that I found a new love for the image of "Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife" painting, from my introductory post, it was sometimes hard for me to really feel a solid connection to the generations of art, that seemingly sometimes looked the same.

I found however that I was really attracted to art done on a more dramatic scale, such as the single light source images that were created by Joseph Wright of Derby. His images interested me because of how simply he renders these pieces, with the mostly all black backgrounds and only some details on the people's shadowy areas. That, alongside the extreme highlights and softness of the scenes he creates within his paintings are enthralling to me. 

I also found it interesting that he painted a lot of scenes depicting the industrial revolution and being extremely accurate within those paintings. This helped me to picture better where the artist was coming from and to then help me to put together where Joseph Wright of Derby experienced in his lifetime. I've always loved history, and art was a big part of that aspect, but to see works of art and science blended together in harmony fascinated me since I've never been a big fan of science, so thus I sometimes forget how important it is to how we live today. Not only science and art are blended together almost flawlessly but also the visual details that we see of the historical context that is reflected in His works.

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery 

I would one day love to have the ability to create images as dramatic and eye catching as these, but until then I can only learn from what I see. Another thing that I notice with Joseph Wright's work, is that his people are very clear as to what emotion they are experiencing at that moment. They arent stiff and fake like many of the portrait paintings that were shown throughout this class. Because of this, his work reminds me greatly of my favorite artist Norman Rockwell. Who knows? Perhaps he was inspired by  Wright's work as well? That is something interesting to think about.

Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump

All in all, this quarter was very interesting, and I enjoyed it very much. Its always fun to take a step back from all the fast pace life of the 21st century and find some solitude along with the artists that created these wondrous paintings from long ago, when life was more simple and there were so fewer distractions from the everyday passions.

Thanks for a great quarter Professor Bowen! And to all my classmates who commented on my blog this quarter, Thanks for taking the time and leaving such nice thoughts :D See you all next quarter! 

<3 Kelsee