Visual Art: San Antonio Museum of Art

Visual Arts: San Antonio Art Museum

For this assignment I took a trip to the San Antonio Museum of Art. I saw many pieces of work but I did find the two that I was interested in writing about. These two works of art both happen to be oil canvas but they were from two different collections.

The first piece of art work I noticed was familiar to me because one of my class mates actually discussed this in class for the gazing and grazing assignments, I chose to write about Passing Storm Over The Sierra Nevadas by Albert Bierstadt. This painting is from the American Art Collection. This canvas just caught my attention. I read a little about the painting. Bierstadt was best known for large panoramic landscapes. And the American Art collection is actually older than the San Antonio Museum itself. It was said that after the civil was bierstadt would actually paint these images of beautiful landscapes without native Americans and take them back home to inspire expansion and to inspire a new begging.
The focal point of this painting follows the rays of light from the ground all the way up to the sun shining through the storm clouds. I get an uplifting feeling when I look at this painting. I wonder if Bierstadt did this on purpose, because it feels uplifting, your eyes are being LIFTED by the rays of light. It looks as if the mountain in the distance travels into the clouds, as if it’s really a staircase to heaven. After researching the painting some more I think the purpose of this painting is to get people to want to travel into this area. It seems like a place I would want to be. I do get a sense of hope from this painting, like there are better days to come. The painting looks very realistic.
There are a few important features of this painting. The first one I want to discuss is going to be line. I feel that without the artistic elements of line in this painting the focal point would not have been the same. As I mentioned before the rays of sunlight create lines from the ground to the sky. Value is another element that is in this painting as well. There are a lot of light and dark areas, I see that a lot of the ground area is dark, but is also just different shades of the browns the sky also makes different shades of blue. I see that the painting does have some form of balance. I don’t know if I would say its symmetrical balance, but it does not seem asymmetrical. This piece of art is very beautiful.

The next piece of art I found was from the European Art Collection. Its titled Admiration by William Adolphe Bouguereau (French). This painting is also an oil canvas.
I researched this painting as well and read that this painting is a prime example of the nineteenth century academic painting. It was also the highest honored in the Salon of 1899.
I love this painting. First of all I think that any persons body is beautiful just the way that it is, I know that there are some people who would disagree with displaying a painting like this, but I feel that its real and only natural. The focal point of this painting is the young angel in the center of the painting. The women around the angel have all their attention on the young angel there isn’t one looking anywhere else. I feel that the focal point is important because the purpose of this painting is how the women admire the youth and beauty of this young angel, which also has a play on the title of the piece; Admiration.
The purpose of this painting is basic and simple but very real and important to any woman or man. The two women in the front are bare, and exposed, while the woman behind them are mostly covered, hiding what could be judged or looked down upon. All of these women are focused on the beauty of the young angel. Even the body language and movement of the angel just shows confidence, however the movement from the women around seems to be closed into themselves as if they are afraid to stand and be open, as the angel is. I think this painting is realistic, I know there might not be sighting of angels caught on pictures or on t.v., but I don feel like the theme of this painting is realistic.
The important elements of this painting are colors. The colors all seem to be pure and warm. The value adds lightness to the painting. The lines in this painting come from the direction of the eyes from the women. Their line of sight leads directly to the angel in the center. This painting appears to have symmetrical balance. I would say that the virtuosity of this painting is the women and the angel. Just being able to paint these women so beautifully and making their skin look surreal is what I think was hard about this painting.