Wall Weeping: Museum Analysis

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Although, at the time, I was only visiting The Broad for my own personal pleasure, I knew as soon as I saw this particular piece: I would use it for my assignment. The Broad is a contemporary art museum, which just opened in downtown L.A. and houses almost 2,000 pieces of art! (www.thebroad.org) I luckily had the pleasure of attending the museum while it was still open to the public at no charge. Wall Weeping is an oil painting on linen canvas. The content of this piece is nine figures, assumingly male, with their backs turned towards the viewer. The arms and hands of each figure are raised above their heads against a wall, although their necks are bowed. The artists strokes are extremely reminiscent of Expressionism. The hues in this piece …show more content…

The first trait that tempted me was the texture of the painting. Oil paint can be very brilliant and precise, but the strokes in this piece, to me, seemed to be extremely smooth, yet somehow jagged. This “jagged” effect, I believe, comes from the brush being scraped over the canvas with little-to-no extra pigment added to it. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but when I got closer, I realized the actual roughness of the canvas as well as the hardened oil paint- of course, you can’t reach out and touch an art exhibit. This painting is quite large in size, actually standing at a little over 70 inches and reaching just over 118 inches. …show more content…

As I was walking around the gallery, I tried to study each painting for at least a full minute before reading what it was all about. When I got to the Wall Weeping I was captivated, I wasn’t certain that the people were being searched, but the angle in their necks and raised hands, to me, indicated pure shame. When I read the small excerpt and had a second glance at this painting it spoke totally different volumes to me, and when I tried to discuss it with the person I came with, she told me that she thought it was weird depicting Palestinian people being searched, she hadn’t read the entire explanation! I was thrilled to explain to her that they also could be symbols of Hebrew people praying at the Western Wall, what an interesting idea this artist decided to share with us.
My favorite aspect of this painting was the choice of colors. I thoroughly enjoy black and think that monochromatic tones are the most aesthetically pleasing. The tones in this painting are inviting, while reminding you in the back of your mind that they are depicting heinous acts. The fading figure to the left is completely terrifying to me, it evokes many questions inside myself about death, the afterlife, and the

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