Art Event 2

Last week I went to the senior art show. I thought that both seniors had very well thought out topics and presentations. The first senior’s topic was orentalism. She started off by  showing art work from a person named Ingres. One painting known as Valpincon Bather showed a woman nude, with her back toward the audience while wearing a turban. The speaker explained that while those types of women are not as much desired in their own country to the east, men in the western part of the United States do desire them. I believe they desire them because they are foreign and mysterious to the men of the west at the time (which was Europeans.) Another artist that the senior looked at was a person known as Man Ray, who was directly influenced by the paintings of Ingres. Ray made a piece that he called coat stand which combined a women with a coat stand (in photo form). The senior believed that the artist’s message to people was that women were just objects, exactly like a coat stand. I myself believe that Ray’s argument is not valid because women have done so much to be recognized that they can be seen more as people than objects. The Second senior to showcase in the senior art show talked about the works of Kathleen Gilje. This Artist’s specialty was taking a art historian or a critic and putting the face of such person in her work. One example of his work is lowry Sims as Napoleon, which shows the face of an African American woman on the body of Napoleon Bonaparte. The painting also shows a gun instead of a sword. Back when this painting was made, African Americans did not have a lot of rights as they do now. To see a African American in power (much less a women) would have shocked a lot of people back then but now it does not surprise people at all. Gilje captured that in his piece of art.

Overall, I believe that the seniors that presented did a very nice job. All of the artist that they talked about had very interesting paintings that were not just pleasing to the eye, but also made you think as well.