Visiting the Museum of Modern Art Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Visiting the Museum of Modern Art - Term Paper Example The paper "Visiting the Museum of Modern Art" gives a detailed information about visiting MoMA. One particularly famous museum in the Unites States is the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. This location is fascinating for the depth of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and recent digital work. It is truly a living and breathing museum. What follows is a brief synopsis of this student’s recent visit to the museum. While many pieces in the museum captivated my attention, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to two in particular. The first is an oil painting by the French artist Odilon Redon. The painting itself, at first glance, is simple enough. The title says it all ‘Rock on the Beach’. Upon further examination, however, I was drawn to this painting because of the detail of the formation. It is so unique to other renditions of the ocean, because Redon puts his focus on the rocks, as opposed to the water. You have to wonder why this is. This is certainly an impressionistic piece of art. The effect of light on the rocks and the overall landscape is evident and a strong draw. As I pondered the lighting, I noticed a lack of intensity. It is daytime, yet the picture appears dark and gloomy. This communicates a feeling of isolation and desolation. As we have studied in class, impressionists focused a great deal on nature. They examined, through their art, their own impressions of the natural world. Paintings are usually spontaneous and they attempt to capture a moment in life. that can only be truly felt through the painting. ‘Rocks on a Beach’ is effective to this end. Getting close to the picture, I could see the rough brush strokes that captured the humanity, if you will, of this large rock formation in the middle of a beach. It seems as if this location had a special meaning to Redon and he wanted to portray the feelings he had as he witness this spectacle. We can envision that he was struck by the lack of clarity in this scene and, perhaps, it reflected his mood at that period in his life. I ended up reading the brief biography of this painter while I was at the museum and discovered that around the time of this particular painting he lost a child. The dark and gloomy nature of this impressionist piece of art could very well be reflective of that traumatic event. The final painting I want to discuss is a work by Pablo Picasso. I know he is one of the most famous painters in modern history, but I was struck by the privilege of seeing one of his pieces up close and personal. We are used to seeing the works of Picasso in detail in almost any art book. Perhaps we feel we understand his work already and simply move on. My experience at MoMA, however, helped me to realize that nothing replaces a real-life piece of art. The piece by Picasso that I looked at was his painting ‘Guitar’. This was oil painting on canvas paper. The first thing I noticed about this particular painting was the detail of the brush stroke. It is so refined that it looks as if a photograph was taken. I could barely decipher the difference. That is the brilliance of Picasso. The interesting thing about this picture is that the painting is not really reflective of a guitar at all, leading one to wonder about the title that Picasso gave this particular work of his. That is, I suppose, a topic for another time, but it is certainly worth noting. This particular piece of art appears to be a