The first work of art that I will be examining is Thomas Cole’s View of Mount Holyoke, which is more commonly referred to as The Oxbow. The shortened title is a reference to the shape of the river, which is the central focus of this work. This work is a depiction of the view of Mount Holyoke, which was a tourist attraction, as a thunderstorm retreats into the distance. Cole makes a calculated decision to eliminate a hotel that was located just to the right or the viewer’s perspective and replace it with lush greenery and trees. Cole also makes the decision to physically divide the painting with a diagonal line across the middle, with developed America being represented on one side and undeveloped American being represented on the other. The …show more content…
Homer depicts a scene of a farm in this work, with an African American boy in tattered clothes pulling a calf away from its mother. Along with the young black boy, there are two white boys, dressed in fancy clothes, looking on. This painting holds several meanings, one of which is the poor conditions of black life, especially when in comparison with white life. The embedded message within Homer’s work that I will be focusing on for the purpose of this paper is agrarian culture versus urban culture. Homer suggests that there is strength and masculinity in the agrarian lifestyle, and that the boy doing manual labor on the farm will grow up stronger than the two boys who don’t have to do hard work. He is criticizing the two young boys, as well as urban culture, and aligning them with the chicken. The question of urban morality is brought up in Burns article. Burns explains that people were worried about the dissolution of the morality and conviction of living a rural lifestyle, and that the American social order was in danger. (Burns, pg. 6) As Cole states in his article “in this age, when a meager utilitarianism seems ready to absorb every feeling and sentiment, and what is sometimes called improvement in its march makes us fear that the bright and tender flowers of the imagination shall all be crushed beneath its iron tramp.” (Cole, pg. 3) What this means is that the “improvement” of cultivated society may lead to the forgetting of our rural roots on the farm. I think that Homer has shown that he sides with the agrarian culture, and has displayed a sort of content towards
At first glance, John Taylor and Howling Wolf’s visual representations of the treaty signing at Medicine Creek Lodge appear very different from one another. It is more than apparent that the two artists have very different interpretations of the same event. This paper will visually analyze both works of art by comparing and contrasting the compositional balance, medium, and use of color, as well as how the artists narrated their views using different visual elements.
During his time as an indentured servant, Moraley would travel to the countryside for jobs and would describe that “ Almost every inhabitant, in the Country, have a plantation … where Gentlemen live on the Labour of the Farmer, to whom he grants a short Lease, which expiring, is raised in his Rent, or discharged him Farm.” 7 Colonial America was known for its plantation economy and as described here the gentlemen Moraley refers to live off of the labor of tenant farms, along with servants and slaves as well. Moraley uses the word “gentlemen” to invoke a tone of elitism that the plantation owner embodies. The plantation owner maybe using farmers as his tenants but he still has overbearing power on them because of the farmer’s predicament. The predicament, in this case, is that the farmer has nowhere else to turn to rather than what is essential in an agriculture-based economy, and therefore has to be willing to be under the supervising control of a landowner. This shows the advantages that many affluent landowners, masters, and elites can get since they have an abundance of what the servant, farmer, or poor laborer desires and therefore can subsequently use it for their own capitalistic
On his 2000 studio album, "American III," Johnny Cash sang in a resigned voice, "I got a crib full of corn, and a turnin' plow/ But the ground's to wet for the hopper now/ Got a cultivator and a double tree/ A leather line for the hull and gee/ Let the thunder roll and the lighting flash/ I'm doing alright for Country Trash."* Raised on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, Cash articulated a racialized class divide not simply among whites and African Americans, but among whites, themselves. Cash belonged to a growing class of impoverished white farmers increasingly referred to by his contemporaries as "white trash," and recast by historian Neil Foley as "The White Scourge." In his book of the same title, Foley analyzes the impact of class and race consciousness on white tenants and sharecroppers in central Texas as they competed for farm labor with both African Americans and Mexicans from 1820 to 1940. Foley asserts, "The emergence of a rural class of 'white trash' made whites conscious of themselves as a racial group and fearful that if they fell to the bottom, they would lose the racial privileges that came with being accepted for what they were not-black, Mexican, or foreign born."(7)** "The white scourge", the masses of impoverished whites held in limbo between privilege and denial, Foley asserts, is what informs race relations today. The heart of Foley's argument rests on an analysis of the intersection of race and economics or class. Indeed the two are joined at the hip, race being created and sustained out of competition for labor.
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in the familiar, small town of Neosho, Missouri. He was named after his granduncle, the famed and prominent pre-American Civil War senator. First Thomas Hart Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in beautiful Paris for three years. When he came back he moved to New York City after 1912 he turned away from his usual style, modernism, and gradually developed a rugged naturalism that affirmed traditional rural values. By the 1930’s Benton was riding a tide of popular acclaim along with his fellow regionalist Grant Wood, who was responsible for American Gothic, and John Steuart Curry, who was responsible for The Tragic Prelude. The mural, America Today (1930-1931, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S., New York City), Thomas Hart Benton’s masterpiece, presented an optimistic portrayal of a vital country filled with earthy, muscular figures.
"John William Waterhouse Biography." Artble: The Home of Passionate Art Lovers. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
This work shows impeccably drawn beech and basswood trees. It was painted for a New York collector by the name of Abraham M. Cozzens who was then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting shows a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School. It depicts a scene showing a tranquil mood. Durand was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840.
Simpson, Jeffrey. Art of the Olmsted Landscape: His Works in New York City. Ed. Mary Ellen
Initially, Egan uses Winthrop as a tool to illustrate how things used to be. As he explores the Columbia Bar, Egan points to Winthrop’s description of the river from over a hundred years ago. Winthrop’s colorful language combined with his artistic talent draws a powerful picture of what the place looked like in the mind’s eye. His talk of the “terrible breakers”, “foul marshes” and “heroic flood” place a powerful image of the Northwest in the reader’s mind (Winthrop 1). After referencing Winthrop, Egan contrasts this image with the current day dull, lifeless area predominated by man’s construction. He says, “The struggle from mountains to sea is considerably more indirect now, with hurdles of concrete at every big bend and more th...
Artistic ideals in Canada are often difficult to combine into one concise understanding given their changing nature. The colonial era as well as the late nineteenth century was significantly shaped by Pastoralism, a style that often depicted paintings of the countryside (Davis 36). The Homer Watson painting, After the Rain in 1883 is a pastoral style that depicts “nature reach[ing] its highest stage of picturesque beauty [that only occurs] when forests [have] been cleared, meadows or fields created or cultivated and farms established” (36). After the Rain shows a farmer’s field, where the land has been cleared of trees following what looks to be a major storm (38). Watson represents early Canada by placing emphasis on a secure, eerily comfortable, agrarian based society in a photographic-like piece of work. Homer Watson believed in his w...
1. Hunter, Sam and Jacobs, John. Modern Art, 3rd Edition. The Vendome Press, New York, 1992.
In the early 1900s, the American South had very distinctive social classes: African Americans, poor white farmers, townspeople, and wealthy aristocrats. This class system is reflected in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, where the Bundrens a poor, white family, are on a quest to bury their now deceased wife and mother, Addie in the town of Jefferson. Taking a Marxist criticism approach to As I Lay Dying, readers notice how Faulkner’s use of characterization reveals how country folk are looked down upon by the wealthy, upper class townspeople.
One of the popular assumptions is that Coast Salish art was part of Northwest Coast development; therefore, it was often considered undeveloped and often forgotten in the art world. Coast Salish art was often compared to Northwest Coast art possibly due to Western perspectives of art. Consider how art is often critiqued. Western art often considers the style, the color, and the composition; basically what’s aesthetically pleasing about it. Coast Salish art is often seen as simple compared to Northwest Coast where Northwest Coast style focuses on the likeness of their clan to identify themselves “but also disclose a more specific, subjective and momentary content.” While Coast Salish is seen as part of the development of Northwest Coast, Paul S. Wingert sees that these two art forms are clearly differentiated through their differences of their nature in their
The speaker seems to feel caught between two worlds which is evident in most lines of the poem. The speaker seems to struggle with the fact he cannot change history or personal ideologies of the white Americans. The speaker states, “I respects elder’s / of every color” (29-30). Regardless, of the fact the elder is white or native, the speaker remains muted in silence out of respect. The women speaks of her own history as he “eats his tasteless sandwich” (31) which shows the speakers silent hostility of the situation. Another example of the speakers muted aggression is found in his words,” I do not have a cruel enough heart to break / her own by telling her there are five Walden ponds” (13-14). This is never spoken, only the speakers thoughts about the women’s lack of knowledge on history. The speaker seems to rage silently in his mind,” I could have told her. I don’t give a shit” (18) but, he never says anything aloud. The speaker keeps his opinions to himself, waiting for the next time like in the phrase, “I, as all the Indians had done” (33). His conclusion and last point of this poem states his aversion in the fact he is grouped with the White Americans, referring to them as the” enemy” (37). Which depicts the speakers state of mind as muted aggression and what he would do the next time” somebody thought I was one of
Eyes graze across the surrounding the landscapes. Ears perk up to the sounds of family, friends, strangers, and even animals. The heart delves into the past, recounting memories that had been stowed away for later use. The pastoral landscapes pull the recolations from the minds of the creators, transferring them to the ink of a pen. The symbolism in Walt Whitman’s “I saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing”, Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer”, and Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” reveal that the author’s purpose is to show the reader that natural elements create a desire to become better.