Visual Arts: Critique of Art Work - Personal Statement Example

? Visual Arts: Critique of Art Work 12 June Contemporary art is one the popular art ifications of our historic past. The research centers on the Contemporary art form. The research includes focus on Vincent Van Gogh’s artistic genius. The Ox Cart exemplifies the artistic brilliance of Vincent Van Gogh’s the Ox Cart art piece. The 1884 Van Gogh masterpiece clearly shows the genius of Van Gogh’s contemporary art displayed in the Portland Museum of Contemporary Art. The Ox Cart painting has an effect on the Portland Museum art viewers’ mind. The painting easily prompts the art viewers to admire Van Gogh’s strong sense of balance, and unity. In terms of balance, the painting shows several birds flying at both the left side and the right side of the Ox Cart. In addition, the Ox Cart is drawn in center of the painting. The space on the left of the article is similar to the space on the right of the painting. Likewise, the space on the top of the Ox Cart is similar to the space on the bottom of the bottom of the painting. Further, the Ox Cart painting has an effect on the art viewers’ emotions. The painting inspires the Portland Art museum’s painting viewers to do and give their best in their every activity. The painting viewers will emulate the hard work of Van Gogh in their daily activities. The Ox cart painting viewers are persuaded to emulate Van Gogh’s penchant for perfection. The balance magnificently juxtaposed in the above painting inspires the viewers to give their best output, not their optimum work output. Carol Duncan (7) insists that art museums can be likened to old Ceremonial monuments such as palaces or temples. The museums mimic palaces or temples because the modern taste continues to emulate the formal balance as well as dignity of the structures. Furthermore, the Ox Cart painting has an effect on the art viewers’ character. The painting encourages the Portland Museum of Contemporary Art visitors to be fair in all their dealings. The painting shows that Van Gogh was fair in all his art activities. The Ox Cart painting clearly indicates Van Gogh fairly created masterpieces, not mediocre art works. The same painting indicates that Van Gogh fairly gave his best to capture life on the painting canvass. The painting fairly shows that the Ox Cart was the popular mode of transportation during Van Gogh’s time period. Truly, Van Gogh was a realist. A realist is a person who focuses on real situations in life, not a make believe world. The Portland, Oregon Art museum has a famous Vincent Van Gogh art masterpiece. The art masterpiece is entitled The Ox-Cart. The painting is displayed in the Museum’s Jubitz Section of Contemporary Art (ref: http://www.artknowledgenews.com/). The painting was originally owned by a resident of the Roseburg, part of Oregon. The Portland Art Museum’s Brian Ferriso, states that the Philanthropic donation will greatly benefit the future generations of our nation. The donors belong to the Sohn family. The Sohn family’s generations have admired their Van Gogh painting, Ox Cart, for many decades. The Portland Art Museum’s visitors will surely admire the philanthropic Van Gogh gift. The visitors include today’s people, their children, and many future generations of art lovers. Portland Art Museum. Portland is one of the oldest museums in the United States. The museum has over 41,000 art masterpieces on display in its art rooms. One of the museum’s display rooms includes meticulously selected contemporary art masterpieces. The Ox Cart is one of the priceless contemporary paintings of Portland art museum. The museum receives more than 340,000 annual art enthusiasts (www.portlandartmuseum.org). Bradley Collins (p.1) emphasized Van Gogh’s artistic genius generated many art devotees. Van Gogh’s global loyalists include Japanese tourists travelling to Auvers to sprinkle their relatives’ ashes on Van Gogh’s grave. The paintings of Van Gogh, including the Ox- Cart do not show the artist’s several decades of suffering, while Van Gogh was alive. Van Gogh’s fame reached its zenith several years after the painter’s death. Further, Joseph Masheck (141) insists that Van Gogh grew up in a family that prioritizes balance, unity, and continuity characteristics over financial goals. Van Gogh’s masterpieces exemplify the three characteristics. Van Gogh did not give second thoughts on financial matters. The artist was not concerned with the expenses incurred in making a single painting. Consequently, the artist’s disregarding the prospect of generating profits from the artist’s paintings contributed to Van Gogh’s psychological breakdown. Other authors gave their congratulatory statements on Van Gogh’s contemporary art expertise. Erik Saxon (Masheck 347) reiterated Van Gogh’s paintings are splendidly sprinkled with placements of marks and other shapes that have uniform sizes. The paintings have value and color distributed in evenly balanced patterns, typical of Van Gogh’s contemporary brilliance. Specifically Van Gogh’s popular painting shapes include the circle, square, diamond, and Greek cross. Other Van Gogh shapes include the sun, moon stars, sunflower, and other mundane earthly shapes, including the birds and the Ox that are strategically located within the Ox Cart painting. Furthermore, Nathalie Heinrich (113) proposed many of the Van Gogh loyalists travelled to personally witness the paintings of their idol, Van Gogh. The other loyalists went on a pilgrimage to Van Gogh’s paintings. Many paintings, including Van Gogh’s paintings, were regarded as art relics of the painters’ time period. Specifically, some loyalists visited a Van Gogh exhibition in Arles to observe Van Gogh’s historical dark room. Van Gogh accidentally cut his ear in the historical dark room. Some artists, including Albert Skira (Rewald 11), admired Van Gogh’s art color technique indicating a successful experiment into uncharted artistic waters. The painter’s color schemes showered his paintings with symbols of the painter’s innermost feelings or secrets. Van Gogh used color shades as a medium of expression. In addition, Colin Painter (11) proposed reiterated that there is a growing interest in contemporary art, including Van Gogh’s masterpieces, in our nation. Art critics Michael Fried and Clement Greenberg theorized art works, including Van Gogh’s paintings, make the painting viewers take a look contemplating look at the art masterpieces (Stadler 61). One author, Enrica Crispino (33), insists that many of today’s serious art buyers pay very high prices for any of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. However, Van Gogh was only able to sell one painting during his lifetime. During the 19th century, the average art painter, especially Vincent Van Gogh had trouble selling his paintings in the art market place. Vincent Van Gogh had a very difficult time to present his paintings to possible art buyers. In addition, the Paris Art Market was controlled and monitored by the Salon organization. The Salon was a government controlled exhibition center that hired art jurors to determine whether an art painting is worth being sold in the exhibition displays. Consequently, many of the Salon art jurors rejected many paintings, including the paintings of Van Gogh. Art sellers, like Van Gogh could not show his paintings to rich art patrons because his paintings were disapproved by the Salon jurors. The rich patrons normally rely on the Salon jurors’ critical analysis of an art painting. The rich patrons blindly buy paintings that the Salon jurors classify as high quality art. Susanne Zantop (121) observed that the Salon jurors made their decisions by incorporating their own political inclinations on their art decisions. Most of the art jurors took only fleeting glances on most of the voluminous painting exhibition applications. The jurors were preoccupied with their political activities that their job of determining the quality of the painting applications was tainted with obvious political and culture bias. If bias was absent, Vincent Van Gogh and other painters of that French time period could have been discovered earlier than the actual time of the discovery of the artists’ propping up as art masters . This is understandable. The painting viewers had their own political leanings. In addition, the Salon era of French painting saw the triumphant overtaking of landscape painting, including Vincent Van Gogh’s Ox Cart painting (Freeman 204). Ananta Sukla (137) proposed that one of the secret ingredients of a popular painting masterpiece is distinction. The masterpiece painting evidently outshines the other paintings that are set beside the painting masterpiece. One significant factor is that the masterpiece is painstakingly done with minute details of perfection. Barbara Lounsberry (1) states that t one must bear in mind that each person has one’s own personal psychological bias in order to understand why one painting clearly outshines another painting. One art viewer’s definition of beauty differs from the other definitions of beauty. Consequently, some paintings stand out from other paintings because the art viewers can easily pinpoint a painstakingly done work of art from a lazily completed art work (Isaak 156). In addition, different generations and communities have developed their own art forms. The different art forms include sculpture, poetry, plays, paintings, and others. Different communities develop their own set of art symbols or classifications (Alland 43). Based on the above discussion, contemporary art is one of the popular art forms of our historic past. Van Gogh’s paintings qualify as a Contemporary art form. Today, the Vincent Van Gogh paintings are priceless masterpieces. Indeed, the Ox Cart painting of Vincent Van Gogh convincingly exemplifies the artistic genius of Vincent Van Gogh’s contemporary art form. Works Cited Alland, Alex. The Artistic Animal: An Inquiry into the Biological Roots of Art. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1977. Print. Collins, Bradley. Van Gogh and GAugauin: Electric Arguments and Utopian Dreams. Boulder: Westview Press, 2001. Print. Crispino, Enrica. Van Gogh. New York: The Oliver Press, 2008. Print. Duncan, Carol. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. New York: Routledge Press, 1995. Print. Freeman, Mike. The Process of Art: Essays on 19th Century French Literature, Music, and Painting. New York: Clarendon Press, 1998. Print. Heinich, Nathalie. The Glory of VAn Gogh. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Print. Isaak, Jo. Contemporary Art: The Revolutionary Power . New York: Routledge Press, 1996. Print. Lounsberry, Barbara. The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. Print. Masheck, J oseph. Van Gogh 100. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996. Print. Painter, Colin. Contemporary Art and the Home. New York: Berg Press, 2002. Print. Rewald, John. Post Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin. New York: Museum of Modern Art Press, 1998. Print. Stadler, Ingrid. Contemporary Art and Its Philosophical Problems. Bruffalo: Prometheus Books Press, 1987. Print. Sukla, Ananta. Art and Representation: Contributions to Contemporary Aesthetics. Westport: Praeger Press, 2001. Print. Zantop, Susanne. Paintings on the Move. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Print. APPENDIX: Portland Art Museum Receives Gift of van Gogh Masterpiece The Ox Cart (Ref: http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Vincent_van_Gogh-The_Ox-Cart_Charrette_de_boeuf.html Read More