Danielle's Blog

This piece named "Standing Odalisque" by Henri Matisse was my favorite one out of my three choose ones, I like it the best because of how realistic the woman's body is to an average American women today. It was honestly so refreshing to see a woman depicted with a normalized body instead of the stick skinny girls I see every single day on social media.  The texture and concept also caught my attention. It looks effortless and sophisticated due to the mix of the warm and cool colors added. The composition of this piece uses the vertical rule of thirds, L shapes, and I can even notice the golden triangle. There are leading lines that head towards the focal point which is the girl. My next favorite piece was the "Traveling Circus" by Paul Klee, it caught my eye immediately because of the dot detailing. What I love most about this piece is the fact that the background is just as interesting as the characters within the painting. There was a lot of beautiful scra

After watching the first episode of John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" program, I found it quite interesting to experience  Berger examining the impact of photography on our appreciation of art from the past. It made me reflect and think about the impact of art now and the environment in which I most often view it. Everything is digital now in days, personally I haven't experienced Art in a traditional museum up until last week when I went with my Messina on a trip to the BMA. I really enjoyed that experience because the only thing I was focused on was purely the art, not my dog at my feet or the the tv playing in the background as I stare at some image of an old renaissance painting. Another piece of insight I took away was that uninterrupted silence that can lead to striking stillness. I completely agree with that and found this true at my recent trip to the BMA. He also talks about perspective and how taking pieces of art and zooming in/ ignoring other details can c

After reading Visibility by Italo Calvino  I was left to think about where a lot of my inspiration comes from. After having a childhood and young adulthood full of extremely weird and unique dreams, I am wondering where they come from and why I wake up and remember them so vividly. Many of the times, my dreams incorporate random people that I seen during my day. It's as if my subconscious registers their faces and stores it as a short-term memory for later that night. I do keep a dream journal but I always just jot down the dream, I may begin trying to doodle/draw the visual dream. Stemming off the main idea in this short read, I have personal experience with imagining a design in my head and trying to make is come to life on screen. It's interesting the difference in the intended idea vs the reality of it.

"The Whole Ball of Wax" by Jerry Saltz Reflection My initial thought to the belief that art has transportive powers was one of concurrence. Art dates back to the beginning of time, and I do feel a strong connection to even cave art, for example. There is that undeniable truth that another human with a beating heart once created that piece of art, as a capsule of time.  I also agree that although Art can't physically change the world, it does  influence humanity in positive and negative ways. Both inspiring those to curate a more positive way of life,  or may spark a negative passion in someone to take action on a buried emotion that the art could have provoked. Overall, what I think this reading pointed out the most was that when you look at art, you can't not feel something. It subconsciously has a affect on you, great or small; it opens another door to a parallel thought process. Art is a cat. Art is provoking. Art is life.