Art and Society

Museum Review #1

Daniel F. Ambia

03/30/2014

 

        It was difficult to choose two pieces of art out of the hundreds we passed in the museum. Along with my group we strayed away from the European Masters as quickly as possible and headed toward the Modern Art section in hopes of finding non-religious themed work. The first piece that caught my eye was an oil painting entitled “Office in a Small City”, by Edward Hopper, 1953. Edward Hopper is a famous American “Realist” painter who was born in Nyack, NY and spent many years living and working in New York City. The painting is of a man sitting behind a desk in front of two large windows. It is painted as if the artist was standing just outside the window. An empty blue sky fills the negative space and some tan and light brown buildings can be seen in the background. This would be considered a representational piece because the images are realistic. The colors are cool and the mood of the piece is calm. There are imposing rectangles throughout the painting beginning with the windows and the buildings themselves. This painting caught my eye because it seemed to tell a relatable story. It sort of captured how it feels to live and work in a City. It can be lonely and you are constantly surrounded by the concrete structures of our forefathers.

The second piece I chose was a bronze sculpture entitled, “Development of a Bottle in Space”, by Umberto Boccioni, 1913. The sculpture is monochromatic and made entirely out of bronze. It appears to be the construction of a bottle as if something out of a science fiction movie with bronze twisting upward from a platform toward the final form. It is as if the bottle was being created out of clay and something, or someone, was slowly piecing it together. It is most certainly an abstract piece because I was able to make out the essence of the bottle but not as a reflection. The texture appears to be smooth. For a sculpture made in 1913 I can say that Boccioni was pretty ahead of his time. Boccioni was considered a “Futurist” for his approach to the “deconstruction of solid mass”. This sculpture stood out because it was a different way of representing an object commonly used in still life paintings/sculpture. After swimming through a sea of realistic historical sculptures, I would have to say this was by far my favorite of the day.

The two pieces I chose have obvious differences, one is a painting and the other is a sculpture. One is an abstraction of an object while the other is a representational painting of a man in an office. Hooper is an American realist painter while Boccioni is an Italian sculptor and impressionist painter. I was able to find some aesthetic similarities between the two from my own personal experiences of the work. While Boccioni deconstructs the physical form of the bottle, Hopper metaphorically deconstructs our perception of City Life. Away from the bustle of the streets below, the solo figure in the painting appears to be contemplative and isolated. It is a moment captured of the development of a man as he works and grows and his world perhaps becomes a bit smaller. The sculpture and the painting both made me stop in my tracks and spend a few minutes to digest the work presented before me.