Museum Critique

Museum Critique

The Museum that I went to was the Utah Art Museum up at the University of Utah.and I thought it was a great experience.

One of the collections that they had shown up at the Museum was along the lines of nature and how we as humans can effect it. They had had oil paitings in a big room that were showing the destruction of nature due to human inhabitants. One of the paintings was of an oil rig out in the ocean. But, this rig had been leaking oil into the ocean and you could see the impact it made on the water preservations. There was oil all over the water, it was covered and most likely it is impossible to get it all completely cleaned out of it. There will always be oil in it now.

There are many places where you can find more information about the work that is in this art museaum. You can learn more about some of the paintings by actually going to the museum. At the museum you can ask the people who work there more about the paintings. Also, another thing you can do while you are there is you can look and they have discription boxes on the side of the pictures that give a more in depth article about the painting. One more way is that you can go online and look up more things about a certain painting.

One of my most memorable paintings would have to be the ones about the great depression. These paintings were about the time period when america's economy had dropped. When everyone thought that nothing could be fixed and we just slummed around not wanting to fix anything or do anything about it.The name of one of the paintings was the “Tenant Farmers” this was a painting created by Lou Barlow. The picture shows it to be around the year 1936.

The Picture “Tenant Farmers” depicts an agarian couple whose lived and humorless faces are accentuated in shadow and angular shape by the woodcut technique used to make the print. The verdant fields of corn surrounding the couple stand as testament to their hard work. Barlow was referencing a system of labor that involved landlords paying farmers to work their land. Tenant farming was at the time coming to an end. Some farmers grew tires of what they saw as an unjust labor system. Tractorsand mechanization replaced others, while yet others were driven off the land by the environmental catastrophe called the Dust Bowl.

All of the pictures that I had looked at in the museum related back to the things we have talked about in class in some shape or form. For example, the Depression period. I put this into place along with the topic about our impact on nature. We talked about how we would drive down the streets around town and we stop at a stop light or even just look over to the car next to us, and it happens to be a big SUV. Usually most of the time when we see cars like that there are usually only one person in them at a time. And what that does to our economy is bad. It puts out many toxins and uses a whole bunch of gas. I related the artwork selection to that because the great depression was hard for people all around. Everyone would try to conserve the best that they possibly could at there times of need. If we dont try to conserve then we could just be leading ourselves into another great depression.

Personally I would love to go back and visit to another museum and learn more and more about paintings and the history about them. As I walked into the Utah Art Museum I almost felt as if a calm mood had come over me. It was verypeacefull inside of them and it brought a good vibe into me. As I walked around and looked at the pictures I felt as if I could relate in some way or form to the pictures and with the stuff we talk about in class. I love being able to relate things together and get different views on things for a better understanding on them. If another oppurtunity were to come about. I'd love to go to another museum again.