The Holy Family

The Holy Family

Artist: Allan D'Arcangelo

Media: serigraph



D'Arcangelo is a pop artist best known for his art work focusing on the highway, this print called The Holy Family is just one of the many. The image that this peice depicts represents the values of a steryotypical religious family. I noticed that the highway the car is driving on has three lanes, there is a yeild sign in the middle of the road, and there are pure white baby boots hanging from the mirror. The car that I asume is driving down this road, seems to be driving down the central lane, which represents the belief that a christian family is orderly, balanced, and sticks to a safe path. The yeild sign that appears to be in the middle of the road is a symbol of the idea that a religious family is focused on being concerned for others and that they are very cautionate of their surroundings. Lastly the baby boots that are hanging on the mirror represent a few things. They represent the idea that many religious familys have that the right path to take in life is getting married and having children. The color of the shoes, white, represents purity. The images representing a holy family in this peice of art can be seen in a positive or negative light. It could be pointing out the positive atmosphere of a religious family, because the picture is pleasant to look at, or it could be mocking the ideals of a christian family because the three lanes and the yeild sign in the middle of the road are somewhat absurd.

La Nona Ora

By: Maurizio Cattelan

This picture is of Pope John Paul II being struck down by a meteorite. In the forground we see glass strewn across the ground and in the background we see the Pope laying on the ground with a meteor on him. This artwork was all clay figures except for the glass.

From what I intake from this piece of art, I clearly notice the Pope being crushed by the meteor. This makes me think that the artist was going against the church or thought that the church was perhaps corrupt.

I also notice that the entire floor is red. To me this is a symbol of blood. Maybe stating that the Pope should be removed or killed.

A couple questions I have is why the artist
would choose to do a piece of art like this, and
if he was going against the church, why was he going
against it?

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya is a very dark piece of art. I see it as in your dreams the things you try to hide find their way out of the dark corners of your mind and surface in your dreams. The animals mean different things like according to the Art Book Goya the bats are symbols of " filth and lust becoming ever more menacing as they circle the dreamers head." and the cats have always been a symbol of witchcraft. That is only one interpretation though. I think the bats are a symbol of everything evil the person has ever thought about consciously or unconsciously. The cats if you look there are two of them and they might be a symbol of white and black magic but I see them as the two sides of a person the white one being good and the black one being evil. I didn't see the black cat at first because he is hiding and the white cat is more apparent I think this symbolizes the fact that everyone has two sides good and evil and one is always more visible than the other in this person it's his good half that is more prominent. Still the dark side of him is there lurking in the shadows trying to make them do dark things. I also noticed that everything on the person is white except for his head this shows how all the dark thoughts come from his mind everything that he has dreamt up all the animals come from his restless mind. I was attracted to this artwork because it was so dark it reminded me of when my mom would read me poems out of this massive Edgar Allen Poe book he was her favorite poet and since then Edgar Allen Poe is still nostalgic for me it reminds me of my very early childhood. Not only because of the art itself but the title really caught my eye The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters as the Art Book Goya explains " The imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters..." I think that most of us as we grow older lose our imagination and replace it with logic and reason. Your no longer imaginative your creative. You don't play with your imaginary friends anymore, you don't pretend your a princess or a solider anymore, and you don't play with dolls or action figures anymore. We lose that innocence as we grow older we know the world isn't filled with rainbows and butterflies and around every corner there aren't sugary sweets waiting for you. We know the reality is that it's a cruel world out there and you have to make of it what you can. So maybe that's the meaning of the dark head you've now lost your innocence and your head is desolate because your imagination has left you. You know that there isn't a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater. The grass can't be pink and cows aren't purple. That's illogical, so now that you have that reasoning the real monsters come out. The ones that make you realize that the world isn't like a big fluffy cloud.

Diane Arbus

"Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J., 1967"

This picture really interests me. Their creepiness imagine just makes you want to dig deep into the roots of the picture. Whenever I first glanced at this picture, they're two identical twins but they're not the same. They're around seven or eight years old. They're wearing matching outfits: white tights, corduroy dresses, and thick white headbands in their dark hair. The girls stand shoulder-to-shoulder, their light eyes looking straight into the camera, straight at us. And the more you look back at them -the more you stare -the more you realize how different they are from each other.

Photographer Neil Selkirk, who has been printing Arbus' photographs since her death said, was fastinated by this picture and said, "Just look at the set of their mouths," he says. "They're different people looking at different worlds and yet they might be the same person." Makes me think, what's behind their eyes that they're looking at "2 different worlds"?..what are they seeing?

Diane captures photographs of people who live on the edge of societal acceptance, as well as those photographs depicting supposedly "normal" people. Her subjects appear to be perfectly willing, if not eager, to reveal themselves and their flaws to her lens. Arbus biographer Patricia Bosworth says Arbus was involved in the question of identity. Who am i and who are you? The twin image expresses the point of that vision: normality in freakishness and the freakishness in normality. That's what this represents. This is just a picture yet the more you look the more in depth the picture goes and it's like an optical illusion. This is America and this picture represents just people, you may not get what you see when you first look at someone, especially "freaks" at first glance. You look at the world differently...

Tennis Serve (Gussie Moran)

Tennis Serve (Gussie Moran) (1949)

This picture is of a tennis star named Gussie Moran serving the tennis ball. It was created with high speed multiple flashes. It is almost mesmorizing just because of all the different rackets, how the girl appears to be a ghostly figure because of all the white, and how there are a lot of tennis balls in the picture due to how fast his camera was taking the pictures. It depicts 33 tennis reackets and there is also 33 tennis balls! This picture is definitly one of my favorite pictures I've ever seen due to the detail of the tennis shot and all the different motions in her serve. Edgerton was known for helping athletes out with their technique all because he could take pictures like these that could basically analyze every detail of the athletes technique. This picture really brought me in with how it doesn't even look like a tennis shot because of all the different things going on. How did Edgerton create this masterful picture? Where did he develop the technology for his camera to take this?

crazed little boy

Diane Arbus

Child with toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962

My first response to this picture was giggles. I then proceeded to assume this picture was a response to the rapid changes entering Amerca during this time period; that the young generation of America was straying away from the conservative ways of the 50's and would eventually end up in social revolution.

What drew me to this picture was the little boy's face and his scronny body. Looking closer I noticed his hands: clenching a toy grnade in his right and his left, firm in an almost open grasp. Also noticing that his jumper is hanging off his left shoulder, I wonder if his jumper was just too big for him or he was doing some stranious activity, or if it's something more than that and it represents another underlying factor? The contrast in the picture, the shadows, and aperture all leading to the little boy, make the people in the background blurred, thus removing their identities. I wonder if Arbus did this on purpose or not.

To me the little boy represents the past and near future America was about to be thrown into. The past being the 1950's which was associated with the "American Dream," and the future being the drawn out Vietnam war and the beginning of counter-culture lifestyles.

Questions

Where are the little boy's parents?

Why are all the people in the background blurred?

What was making the little boy make that face?

Do the the two trees behind the boy represent anything?

my daguerreotype

This isn't the photo that i origionally chose. Yet like the one i chose its a daguerrotype (an early photograph produced on a silver-covered copper plate). Now that i have a new photo, i haft to think of new things to say.......

To me this picture represents freedom to do, and dress however you want, no matter if your a clown, or a business man. Just to be yourself and have fun no matter what.