The Human Experience - Essay Example

The Human Experience The artwork of my choice is Hendrik Siemiradzki’s “Confidence of Alexander the Great into His Physician Philippos”. It depicts how highly strong-willed Alexander III of Macedon was the time he lay on his deathbed, struggling against malaria.To what human experience does the work relate? How is that human experience meaningful to your life?  Such piece of art particularly relates to the medical issues I am inevitably confronted with at present in the midst of my desire and endeavor to pursue a degree in the field of education.

Sickness has become a significant part of my life especially when I left school in 2009 due to cancer which had truly turned my life around upon the realization that in life, anyone can be made vulnerable to a disease and be confined to the misery of excruciating thoughts and feelings of insecurity besides physical pain. Having surpassed cancer and being occasionally ill to this point has been such a humbling experience that it teaches me the way to joyful living despite the fact that humans possess only fleeting moments of existence on earth.

With this physiological conflict, I learn to view things in a different light and gain a more positive insight behind the principle of ‘carpe diem’ or seizing each passing day as if it were the last, for the essence of living occurs to be living in full measure and this is the reason I feel alive with enthusiasm as I venture to proceed with my studies in a manner of learning via creative rather than conventional approach. Equivalently, my tough encounters with sickness and slow recovery at some point has all the more inspired me to spend ample time with my family, close friends, church service, and the civil air patrol whenever I can.

How does the work express or relate to your human experience? What social, cultural, and moral values does the work express? Looking into the painting with analytical intent, one would observe that Alexander the Great quite reflects a figure of radiance instead of gloom, signifying that his monumental courage does not merely apply to fierce situations of combat among men fighting over territories and conquests to be won. The sight of Alexander in the marvelous craft of Siemiradzki is one that enables me to imagine bravery from within or that which depends not on the type of battle and what I have become out of illness I suppose resembles much of the heroic scenario in which Alexander appears far from ceasing to be great that he even manages to extend his confidence to the attending doctor at the time notwithstanding the dreadful case of his infectious disease.

His aura in the masterpiece, to me, is symbolic of determination or fervent willfulness to live and conquer with which I could figure a relevant connection of personally being able to transcend not just the physical and biological difficulties but as well as the emotional complications along with them specifically on acknowledging the bitter truth about imperfections in marriage and relationships that were bound to end like how it fared between me and my husband of 20 years. Siemiradzki’s work reminds me that true courage resides in the spirit so that a sick person does not easily succumb to the weaknesses brought about by an ailment.

Culturally, the painting speaks of a virtue which also happens to be a common trait among the Greek to which the Macedonian prince belonged as one of the bravest and wisest men that walked the earth. Through a number of characters surrounding the spot of the main subject may be perceived the degree of concern toward a leader whose sensible followers satisfactorily contribute to both the social and ethical aspects of rendering support for the Great Alexander by the conspicuous warmth of peculiarly individual yet solemnly moral form of communicating with the supposedly deteriorating central figure.

Reference“Confidence of Alexander the Great Into His Physician Philippos, 1870.” bridgeman. Retrieved from http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/364937/Siemiradzki-Hendrik-1843-1902-after/Confidence-of-Alexander-the-Great-into-his-physici on May 29, 2012.