My Kid Could Paint That

In the painting A Peasant Family at Lunch, the peasant family is living in a small dirty room having their simple meal. The family members all look at their food and have no eye contact with each other. They reflect the society Friedrich Engels described in his article The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. The family members "selfishly concentrated upon their private affairs." When eating together, the atmosphere in the room should be warm. However, the color tone of the small dirty room and people's facial expression makes the room depressing.

Because of Industrialization, some people can expand their population and reduce heavy labor. Making clothes is easier. As you see in the painting, their clothes look ragged, they have little furniture. They are peasants, and their room is dirty and tight, which is commonly seen in this time period. They are the working class Engels speaks of. 

Apollo Slaying the Serpent also named Apollo Slays Python or The Triumph of Apollo is a painting made by Eugene Delacroix. As a Romanticist, Delacroix uses light and color to determine the good and evil. Apollo, the God of Sun, appears as bright warm colors and surrounded by light and other gods in the middle of the painting. The painting also can be understood as the sun drives away darkness. In his chariot, Apollo was using an arrow to shoot the serpent. The bottom part of the painting is dark, which shows the evilness of the serpent. 

Apollo Slaying the Serpent is a ceiling painting hang in Louvre. It has been transformed from a palace to a public art museum in the idea of "[art] is the property of the citizenry." Museums are modern inventions, created for political rather than aesthetic reason. The rulers believed by looking at the treasures of art can make people gain national heritage.

Here I am in this white world. I can't feel my body because of the cold wind. But the main reason is because of my legs. My legs are not mine, they are not connected by veins. I am using two crutches to walk in the deep snow. My footprints doesn't last as the snow covers it. I cannot be found, I am alone. My friend told me that I can find the meaning of life in snow, so I came.

The walk is long, and I discovered nothing. The whole world is white, except me. I am the only color in the world. The vast white buries other colors. The walk continues, I see a green spot in front of me. And when I get closer, the green amplifies. It is some evergreen trees that light up the white world. Among them, is a crucifix. I stand, to confirm that it was real. I shake and couldn't hold my crutches. I run towards the green spots. My legs tried its best to move and finally stop under the crucifix. I lean on the rock and begin to pray. I wish god can hear my voice, comfort my pain, and take away the cold. If life is suffering, then I hope I can have a better life after death.

At the year of 79 A.D., an ancient port in Italy, Misenum, was buried by the nearby volcano- Vesuvius. The volcano ashes destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. This scene is pictured in the background of Angelica Kauffman's painting. On the right side is the three-primary colored family group: Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger and his mother. Pliny the Younger is the son of Lucius Caecilius Cilo and Plinia Marcella, Pliny the Elder's sister. After Pliny the Younger's father died, he was raised by his mother. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped educate and raise him. After Pliny the Elder died in the Vesuvius eruption, he passed his estate to his nephew, who was later recognized as Pliny the Younger.

Vesuvius was erupting and the sea was churning. It seems to be the end of the world. Pliny the Younger's mother was afraid of the disaster and tried to use her veil to protect herself. She placed her hand on her son to make sure he was still there. Pliny the Younger, the boy in blue, looked pretty pissed. He was studying as he claimed in his letters to Cornelius Tacitus, while Pliny the Elder went to rescue other people in danger. Pliny the Elder asked if his nephew wanted to come, but "[Pliny the Younger] replied that [he] preferred to go on with [his] studies, and as it happened [Pliny the Elder] had himself given [Pliny the Younger] some writing to do." Pliny the Elder later died as a hero saving many people.

Perhaps Kauffman wanted to punish Pliny the Younger so she painted his figure with two left foot and a wrong perspective. There is also another version: Kauffman was lazy and made her less talented husband paint some parts of the painting, and the two left foot of Pliny the Younger was his "masterpiece."

Dear Jenny Zhu,

Congratulations, you have passed Barstow's junior year! Now you are here to finish the last year of high school in Barstow with me :)

I remember when you first came to Barstow, I didn't have a positive feeling about you. But time has proved I was wrong. We got together pretty well. Maybe it was because we wanted to get into the same major. I feel thankful about that as you are a good friend to work with.

Here is a picture of Monet's Impression Sunrise painting. It reminds me our hometown - Shanghai. Shanghai used to be a fishing village but now the harbor expanded and became a International Trading Port. I wish you to have a bright future like Shanghai. This painting also gives me a misty feeling which I have now during this application season. I know you have the same feeling as me but I believe everything will go well because I know you have great passion in art. Hope this painting will limit your homesick.

Thank you for pushing me forward when I don't know what to do. Also thank you for coming to Barstow. We all enjoyed being with you.

Love,

Linda Xu

In The Progress of Love series, Fragonard painted this piece The Lover Crowned. In this piece, the light comes from the left bottom corner and directly illuminates the lovers, who are the main focus in this painting. The woman is crowning the young man with a garland. However, the woman is looking away when crowning, which makes the viewers think she was not willing to do so. Take a closer look and viewers can find she is smiling. The woman's left hand is holding the man's hand. Their hands are either facing up or down which symbolize receiving and giving in relationship. The man shows his love as he is looking at the woman instead of looking up at the garland. It is also shown as he was sitting on the floor begging the woman while the woman is sitting on the bench tricking him.

In the background, the trees are doing the same pose as the lovers. The big tree in the middle is like the woman crowning the weak tree on the left. Before the trees, there is an angel statue looking down at the lovers, wishing them good luck. On the right bottom corner of the painting, an artist is sketching the lovers on his sketch book. By lining up the lovers, viewers can see the angel statue and the artist are symmetrical. The painter used complementary colors such as green and red to highlight the red in the painting which emphasize the theme love. Also, elements like flowers, music, and angel all symbolize the beauty of love in this painting. The hue in this painting is thick but because of the use of nature and warm light in this painting makes the painting looks comfortable.

My wife and I were on our honeymoon at the beach. It was different from the Midwest. It was all about sunshine and hotties. When I say hotties, I mean Rita especially. She was in her sexy dress-like swimming suit that makes her beautiful legs longer and smoother. Rita was not feeling well because of the hot weather. She was holding her pink handkerchief to wipe her good-smelling sweat all the time. I guess she was pretty sick, even my groovy body with six beautiful abdominal muscles and the curly mustache she loved couldn't make her look happy. I looked at her with my dark brown eyes. She was shy to look at my beautiful face and turned away.
On the beach, there was this weird family. The mom in red was fixing her long red hair while the father and son were measuring her body with a tailor's cloth ruler. They were talking about something like "this dress is too loose," "modify the waist," "don't move," "taking picture" "ins gallery." I guess the mom is a galler (a made-up word similar to blogger) in the Instagram Gallery who hangs a picture of herself to gain fame. It is a new form of art which I don't understand. All I know is future generations will remember me for my magnificent paintings but maybe not their work.

Judy Chicago, an early feminist artist, challenged the "white-men-only" art world with her art. Chicago legally changed her last name to her hometown name to symbolize her struggle trough identity after becoming a widow when she was only 23-years-old. Her search of identity is also shown in her art works, which aimed to elevate women in society and history. Like her most famous work, The Dinner Party, Marie Antoinette from the Great Ladies series memorizes the contribution of the last Queen of France- Marie Antoinette.

In this piece, Judy Chicago uses spray paint on canvas to make an even texture. She developed the butterfly motif on this painting. In many religions, butterfly is a symbol of the soul after people die. So in Chicago's work, she placed a thought that the great people will live forever in our mind. The use of bright color and the gradual change of color from the center to outside makes the design looks like a sun, which also glorifies Marie Antoinette. On the rim of the painting, Chicago wrote "Marie Antoinette—during her reign women artists enjoyed great success. But the French Revolution --which brought democracy to men-caused women artists to lose their status while the Queen lost her head." Chicago pitied that great woman that raised the status of women artists died so early in which somehow effected the time and difficulty for women to get back in the art party.

Bacchus #3 is a painting of Roman wine god Bacchus created by Elaine de Kooning. It is the third painting of de Kooning's Bacchus series. Elaine de Kooning, wife of Willem de Kooning, got inspiration from the sculpture of Bacchus and painted it in her later career.

Elaine de Kooning uses Abstract Expressionism to show energy in the drunk god. Bacchus, a god of wine, is also the god of grape harvest. In this painting, to show Bacchus is related to nature, de Kooning smears blue, green, and yellow in the background. In addition, Bacchus represents the indulgent side of human nature. As seen, there are multiple blue-grey human figures overlapping each other which conveys the sense of carnival, chaos and sex. De Kooning's use of black outlines depicts the body figures and makes it easier for audience to differ the characters. The faceless figures express that the drunk humans are plunged to their dreamland.