As I mentioned in class, this week's blog is a little different than previous blogs in a number of ways. First, in order to participate, you must navigate to a couple of other websites so that you can look at, interpret, and compare two famous works of art (see links below). Second, I expect all of you to give a more "formal" response to the questions below. In other words, I'd like you to write more than a few sentences in your response. Consider this a sort of "online essay." Don't worry, I don't expect you to write a 3-page response; I do expect you to give a well-thought-out, organized answer. Finally, when writing your response, I'd really like you to reach into the depths of your creative mind: look at each work, read it, interpret it, and enjoy it.
Click on the links below. Look at each work of art for as long as needed. Then, answer the questions below.
http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rivera/rivera130.html By Diego Rivera (Mexico)
http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh35.html By Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands)
Both paintings explore the theme of labor (work). However, each painting has its own perspective of the work: the people involved, the place, the type of work, the people's relationship to their job, etc.
In a short essay-type response, compare/contrast the different ways that each painting explores the theme of work. Be sure to fully explain your answer (don't make your reader guess, tell them what you mean!). Remember, this is your interpretaion--one of many! There is no "right" answer. Good luck!
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Dear Docent,
ReplyDeleteThank you for leading us in your gallery. Both of the paintings are beautiful. I felt as if I was walking by these two different themes. I like them a lot, yet I perceive totally different aspects from these two great artists. As I walk by the field, where the sower is sprinkle his seeds into this open- spaced field alone with the glaring sun setting behind him; I am about to ready to greet the sower; but I am forced to back up a little bit—maybe it is the sun so overwhelmingly glaring into my eyes and I seem hearing Vincent van Gogh shouting angrily. Overall, the field looks very big and the sower is working alone. Furthermore, the earth is flipped not in an organized way. It seemed that somebody who worked on it earlier just wanted to get the soil flipped. That’s all. No further efforts were added on it. In addition, the soil looks really chunky (hard) and infertile (not soft). The sower is just walking and sowing diagonally (not organized), carelessly, and do not care about where the seeds lay or the birds behind him. Whether or not the sower owns the field, he just wants to get the job done. I don’t feel his passion for his job because a farmer with passion would take care his land in more organized way such as flipping the earth and sowing the seeds in certain pattern, fertilizing his soil, looking down a little bit as he sowing to see where the seeds land, and checking the birds which are after the worms or his seeds etc. I am wondering what made him lost his passion for his job. Was he discouraged by the barren field or something else happen in his life that makes the life too difficult to bear? However, just like the sun rises and sets regularly, life goes on no matter what happens. Is that why the sower turns his back on the merciless glaring sun and why I hear Vincent van Gogh is shouting? I would not know.
In contrary, when I walk by the sugar mill, I felt that something is drawing me into it; and I wanted to go in there and find out. When I walk down into the mill, I see the harmony, what is visual balanced, in these 4 groups of people working on different tasks. First of all, the 2 groups of people work closely toward the right hand side of the painting at the bottom of the mill. Moreover, the 4 right handed men in the middle of the painting was stirring the syrup although one is facing outside. I see they have well developed muscles, probably from the same hush job they work everyday, and they work skillfully with all their minds. The way they hold their poles and the way their bodies curve are super beautiful. In addition, the people working on the top of the mill are doing something toward the left side of the painting. Each group is working with great cooperation almost with rhythms, and, for me, they are dancing with the rhythms they create just like a mechanical assembling line in which each step is well connected to the next. The whole painting depicts a great harmony—the rhythms the workers create and the visual balance effect: 3 levels of different groups occupy the paint from the bottom to the top; and the top and the bottom of the workers work toward different sides of the paint. I, also, can see that the workers work with great passion because the rhythms cannot be created without passion. I would say that they are happier then the farmer in the empty field. Part of it is they are processing on the harvested sugar cane- nothing could go wrong with a harvested sugar in hands: future is promising; and another part of it is that the harmony can be made with only truly happiness. No matter the harmony was created by Diego Rivera or it was truly observed by him, I like it a lot.
Both of pictures are so really nice and express common living well. When I saw Diego Rivera's picture, I felt this picture is very dynamic and energetic. The people, who are in the picture, are making sugar. Even though it's not same in now, we can guess how to make sugar as seeing the picture. In addition, the people who are working in building and the other people who are working outside are very in harmony and detail. I can also guess the woman who is between guys is like supervisor, and it even expresses delicately each of bricks. Finally, when I saw that at first, I felt that this picture is full of my mind. On the other hand, Vincent van Gogh's picture is that something is empty, but so I felt peace and calm. The sun gives me to be peaceful, and when I saw the sower, I couldn't feel tiredness. He gives me energy as he stands straight. This picture offer comfort and energy at the some time. These pictures both are very nice and awesome, but I like Gogh's picture Diego's. I can't explain just it's stabler and more easeful.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I concern, both of two picture are really beautiful painting. The first picture has shown about one farmer who have to work alone at the paddyfield in the hottest day. On the other hand, the second picture is about people whom work in the sugar mill which each person have their own duty to do. However, in my opinion, even these 2 pictures show about people who are working hard in the same ways, but two of these pictures give different kind of feeling because of 2 things.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that make me feel different between these 2 pictures is that the presure that these pictures have. For the first picture which the farmer have to work alone, he may do not have presure from the leader or coworker, but he may have to work harder than the picture number two. In contrast, the second picture, which is about people who work in sugar mill, show a lot of presure that the worker have. Each person have to do the duty that they have on time for coperrate with other coworkers. From their face I have seen the feeling that kinds of unhappy because they have a lot of presure from their work or their duty. Therefore, these 2 picture have showed me in differnt theams of life that the have to face.
Another thing that I feel these 2 pictures are different feeling is the mood of people in these 2 picture. First picture, I feel like the farmer feel happy about the thing that he is doing. In my opinion, I think he feel happy because he has freedom to do whatever he wants to do. Although the thing that he does will make he feels tired but he still enjoy to do it because it is the thing that he loves. Moreover, from this picture, it make me feel that the farmer has a hope for the future. Whereas, in the second picture, it seem like the worker are not happy from the thing that they are doing. They just do this thing because it is their duty. They seem like do not want to do this thing anymore. As a result, I feel a litter bit gloomy when I have seen this picture because it looks like the workers do not have any inspiration to do this job. As you can see 2 of these picture are give us a differnt kinds of mood in the picture which are totally different from each other.
In conclusion, both of two picture are one of the nice picture that I have ever seen before. When I have seen these 2 pictures, it make me imagination in many things. Furthermore, I feel a lot of different things in these 2 pictures when I look at it closer, such as the presure from work that they are doing and the mood of the worker when they are doing their job. However, both of 2 picture may from the same theam which is about worker, but it make me feel and see in a different way. Therefore, in my opinion, each picture has it own meaning in itself up to each person will look it in what ways.
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ReplyDeleteBy Diego Rivera, actually, my first impression of this painting is that this paiting doesn't make me feel happy or glad; however, this painting descrives work of labor has a important aspect. People in this picture seem have a duty to work for their money, their life or some reasons since this picture doesn't give me good impression because of the fact that this picture doesn't have bright colors, but what I guessed is that they stick together to work because of there might be no leader. Given to the fact that their work is related to crops or producing products, this picture shows the people that work is a part of life.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, another picture, Vincent Van Gosh shows energy in my opinion. Looking at this picuture, what is the most impressive is the sunset. Therefore, this picture doesn't show me the impression of hard and painful labor. Considering sunset, the farm grows well and blue or purple part of the picture might be the ground in which might be seeded produce products. Moreover, a man in this picture appears to be energetic. After all, this picture has possibility and hope. Consequently, this picture descirives that work gives active life.
In the past, when the people didn't have machine to capture the picture that they see to express their story of art. The only way they did was drawing a picture. This is the real hard thing to do because they had to draw the pictures that show the emotion of the real life in what they see. From two pictures, I personally like the one of Van Gogh. This picture makes me feel naturally or myself back to the past or even some place in today where it is still like this picture. From his picture, I like the way of painting that could show or express the feeling of peaceful in this kind of place. Van Gogh chose the warm colors to make audiences follow picture's emotion.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, from Diego Rivera picture, he made this picture show the depth of field or 3D, so to speak. He also showed the way of work at that past time. However, in my opinion, it is not still life picture. I don't feel much when I looked at this picture. He dicided to use the dull tone color which could made me feel different from the one from Van Gogh.
I think color and and composition of this kind of art can affect people or audiences in the different ways because people have different background or personal like. This mean some people might like dark tone of color or some may like light tone that could make them feel warm and comfortable to think about the story that artists want to express their thought through the pictures.
These two pictures were so beautiful and I liked them. Both of them represent ‘working’ people/person; however, when I saw these pictures, I had the totally defferent impression for each picture. The key points are ‘color’and ‘realistic’.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I was impressed by the Rivera’s work something sadly and gloomy.On the other hand, I felt something calm and bright by the Gogh’s work. I think the biggest cause of these different impressions is the color. In the Rivera’s work, the dark tone colors are used mainly. By using black with each color, the whole tone of the picture become more dark and it seems to emphasize the hard working. On the other hand, in the Gogh’s work, we can see the warm hue mainly. Especially, the sunshine over the weat field is very impressive and it looks like a symbol of the hope.
Second, Rivera’s work is more realistic for the working of people; however, Gogh’s work looks like a imaginary scene. There are many people in Rivera’s work and each person has different skin color. In addition, we can see faces of some of them, so I can imagine the sugar mill or their feeling from them. On the other hand, in Gogh’s work, there is only one woman in the field and we can’t see her face cleary, so it is difficult to get information from the work. Then, the color of field is purple, it isn’t real field’s color. So, we can imagine the situation and world very freely by ourselves; for example, how old she is, and why the field is purple, and what is the theme of this picture is.
I talked about two points of ‘color’ and ‘realistic’. Each picture has each characteristic, so we can enjoy them from many points of view. There are no right interpretation for pictures; that’s why the appreciation is interesting for me very much.
First of all, I'm not interested in paintings but sometimes I could describe or tell what the paintings mean. In fact, I like Rivera's picture more than Gogh's picture because I have experienced in working alone and working with people as a group. Therefore, Rivera's picture looks like people are working together; however, Gogh's picture there is just one person working alone.
ReplyDeleteThen, in Rivera's picture all the coworkers look so tired or angry but they are trying there best to make the sugar as what Beom said. Moreover, the colors look so beautiful and the moves of the coworkers let them look so tired. On the other hand, Gogh's picture looks beautiful but the colors are so bright. It describes that the man who is sprinkling seeds are so happy and he looks like he is singing. Therefore, Rivera's picture looks more beautiful than Gogh's picture even when the people look tired or angry.
First of all both paintings are masterpieces and to tell apart between them little difficult especially when viewer doesn't have interest in art. Both of the painters are well-known around the globe. As I understood we have to describe what do we see in these picture and tell what each of painting explores. Each of painting has it's own reason to be painted. For example, Van Gogh's sower has been painted because Van Gogh decided to put his skills to the test. Not only did he work on size 30 canvases, but he set out to prove himself in the genre he considered superior to all others and produce a figure piece of his own invention.
ReplyDeleteDiego Rivera's work is one of his best and famous. It's his work he expresses the lifestyle of Mexican people who live doing farm and agricultural work. I like Van Gogh's work, because when I wan young I've watched a movie about him, which was impressive for me and I really like his works. Rivera is also well-known but I'm not too familiar with his works,however I like this painting about mexican labors, it's meaningful and make people to think. As I said it's very confusing to tell which of these masterpieces are more likely to me, because in first glance it's impossible to see what do they mean, I can't say that Van Gogh's better than Rivera's. To distinguish them I need to have background in art, and can tell my preferences afterward. But anyway these paintings are very useful for us to think about art, and they draw our attention back to art, and make us more interested in it.
Panting and music has been popular around the world. Sometimes, people go to concert and museum for their emotion. It means that they want to satisfy and share their emotion through great music and art.
ReplyDeletePaintings can influence on feeling. Someone might cry when they see special painting such as Gogh's picture, or feel sadness or joyfulness. When I saw two of pictures, I differently felt mood of that day. First, there is a peaceful farmer, who walks around paddy filed silently. He seems to enjoy his work, and there might be nothing to push him to work hard. Furthermore, he seems to walk lightly back home. When he goes home, he thinks warm soup with bread and well done meet after taking shower. After dinner, he chats with his family about this winter vacation trip. He is just content amid poverty and takes delight in the way. That is his happiness and all what he has. As Looking at the second picture, I felt busyness and boisterousness. In the sugar mill, somebody might shout that we should hurry up and work hard. Somebody think to escape here, but he can’t do it because he should take care of his family, and he wants to give them a good living condition even if he needs self-sacrifice. He just lives without hopes, and then time goes so fast.
In two of paintings, I feel many things that make me peaceful or fretful. In fact, the purpose of the painting is for sending message or share emotion with readers. Recently, we almost forget precious of the painting, just few people enjoy going to the gallery. Even if we live in changeable period, we better have little time to fill good emotion in our mind.