Museum Report

Throughout the artistic account of man, pictures or creation of objects with the aim of entertaining, enriching, clarifying, revealing, communicating, confronting, among others, with or without a rationale. This is because many objects that we presently refer to as art such as medieval manuscript, Greek painted pottery, and so on, were made in times when they had different definitions. These objects were admired and appreciated, but, not as art in the present sense. Art is the application of expertise and thoughts to develop esthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others. Art has a complicated network of overlapping series of similarities and formal elements such as line, form, shape, color, texture, space, and value; nevertheless, there is no single aspect that all arts have in common. It is worth noting that art or artwork is acclaimed when it is visually appealing, and elements are blended appropriately. An enormous deal of prominence is put on the visual elements of art and creativity. Thoughtful arrangement of these elements helps in balancing the composition of paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, and graphic designs. Formal elements, therefore, are the characteristics that provide a frame to the value of miscellaneous genre of artwork. This essay explores on various arts by a different artist.

The first artwork is Carolina shout, 1974 by Romare Bearden. Carolina Shout (Of the Blue series done in 1974) is an artwork that mixes collage with acrylic and lacquer, with surface abrasion on board. The size is 371/2” by 51” and the medium is Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC. Carolina Shout is an ode to the gospel tradition of a shout in which believers gather in order to express themselves through song and dance. Bearden uses the title for an image baptism in order to depict the liaison between secular songs among African American composers and religious musicians. Bearden uses various formal elements to enrich his artwork. Bearden uses just a few colors such as yellow and red to create warmth to the scene. There is also a cooler aspect created by both blue and green colors. It is worth noting that Bearden’s paintings usually combines cooler and warmer colors, just as jazz music combines both cool and warm tones. This is an excellent use of value as a formal element, which accentuates and emphasizes the artwork. I totally agree that his work is controversial because he based most of his early artworks on heavily on social and political concern. Although his concern regarding people’s problems never diminished, most of his works abound in ethnic subject matter and other artists referred to him as a social and political propagandist.

The second artworks are the “Prevalence of Ritual Tidings”, 1964 and “The train” 1974. The first one, which is widely acclaimed, was retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1971 and was small, measuring from approximately 5 x 10 to 13 x 19 inches. The latter, “The Train”, 1974 – Collage courtesy of The Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa FL, and measures 151/2 x 22 ¼ inches. Both the paintings possess similar techniques such as collages, variants, and projections. They marked the departure of his earliest works and marked a new beginning in his art. They were exceedingly small, and he used snippets gathered from newspapers and magazines with a linear detail added in ink or graphite. The paintings received a considerable critical acclaim after the artist added photostatic fragments to the palettes of papers, which he utilized as elements in his work. In terms of coloring, the latter has bright coloring such as yellow and red to create warmth to the scene. Conversely, the first painting has brown, black and yellow colors which emphasize on darkness associated with painting itself. The use of black and white in “The Train” shows the facial expression of blacks with hopes of finding jobs. In both pictures, aquatint, a form of etching develops coloring ranging from light to dark, thus, creating a granular effect. The tiny recessed dots formed also forms the image area, and it becomes clear that denser the dots are, the darker the image appears. I believe that this helps in describing the composition of the paintings.

This exhibition has more than seventy calligraphies, aquatints, etchings, screen prints, lithographs, monotypes and projections. The works of Romare Bearden provides an in-depth look at Bearden’s prints and also reveals his partiality for inventiveness within that standard. It also represents an extraordinary flexibility and creativeness of Bearden. He also uses printmaking processes, and essential thematic motifs to help provide a broader overview of his genius as an artist. As a consummate modernist, most of his arts are aligned with the process of collage with trivial space and flat fragmented forms of Cubism. He also possesses uniqueness when he creatively uses luminous colors, unique subject matter, and dynamic composition of rhythmic forms. Narrative is extremely valuable to this artist since most of his works narrate something. For instance, the “Prevalence of Ritual,” concentrated on his skills and experience of African American life, the allegory, rituals, and upholds rites within communities. Collages like Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings (1964) also scrutinized the developing scenery of the rights of African Americans. The use of collage and geometric forms suggest Bearden’s love of jazz and emphasizes on the culture of African-Americans.

Don ZanFagna: Cyborgs - Tampa Museum of Art, in 1971. Don ZanFagna developed Cyborg Notes, which were a series of “cybernetic metaphors” that highlighted on future challenges of DNA mixing. The works of this artist incorporate human and machine, eco-architecture, landscape, cloning, technology and biology that reflected future symbolism. In his work, he creates a stunning work that fuses his inventiveness with futuristic warning. Yellow blue and red colors have been used properly to create the effect of warmth. The combination of colors is evident in Bearden’s Carolina Shout. In contrast, both artists, Bearden and Don ZanFagna use the creativity exceptionally well, but they do not use similar coloring.

John Cage 33 1/3 - "Performed by the Audience" in 2012 is a Celebration of the Centenary of the Composer's Birth. The artist creates sound and performance works that was significantly acclaimed. Conceived in 1969 as an “audience participation” work, Cage’s original "score" stipulated that the colonnade be filled with roughly a dozen record players. The viewers are vital since they aid in the performance. I believe it was a magnificent work, and I enjoyed it. The goal of the work is to emphasize the importance of friend’s assistance, honor and interpretation of Cage’s score.

The incongruously titled Hand-Held (1997) is made of Levine’s large-scale sculptures for its permanent artistic works measuring an imposing 14 feet in length. This was a choice that I made because the artist uses it to help us distinguish a utilitarian object from art. Levine uses video as a medium, and I believe that the roughness finish is intentional but not well polished and buffed. The effect created by shadow and light depicts the actual fight and the rituals in which men partake when they prepare before the fight and also shows loneliness.After looking at and comparing all the above kinds of paintings, it is clear that the formal elements help in understanding the works in a better way. Bearden among other artist uses their creativity and skillful use of various elements of art to produce quality artworks. My overall impression of the museum is that it represents extraordinary and skillful artworks. It is worth noting that when painting any piece of art, we should bring out the elements outstandingly on the canvas, blend colors adeptly to make the creation purely a masterpiece.