The Met Essay, Research Paper

1. The museum I visited was The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, New York. The museum contains works of art from ancient all the way to modern times.

2. The museum was founded or incorporated on April 13, 1870, and began building on 1874 and completed on 1888. The museum since then has gone through continuous construction, expansion, and remodeling. The two original architects were Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, and in 1971 when the museum was expanded the architects were Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates. The style of the architecture is Gothic Revival-Style. Since 1888 the museum has expanded twenty times from its original size. The present entrance and fa ade structure along fifth avenue were completed in 1926.

3. The wing the art work is exhibited in Lila Acheson Wallace wing.

4. The piece of art I chose was Modern Art, the artists name was Dona Nelson. The title is Daily News, the medium is Oil on canvas. It was created in 1983 and the approximate dimensions are 84 X 60 in.

5. This particular painting has many formal visual elements used to create it. The most obvious element is its use of perspective. If you look at the table in the painting it looks like everything should just slide off the table on to the floor, but everything else looks like it could be in a one-point perspective with the top of the buildings as a horizon line. The shapes in the painting look very natural, nothing really has right angles or true angles. The buildings outside the window are the only objects with straight line and right angles and have some kind of shading around them unlike anything in the room. The brush strokes are very visible indicating that they were long and go in erratic directions, as seen on the wall. The paint looks very thick especially outside the window and around the moon. As you can also see it is very colorful inside the room with orange-red for the walls creating a very bright effect, and the outside is very dark with black and blue colors except for the moon light reflecting off the buildings. The painting also seems to resemble a photograph or still painting because nothing is in motion, its still like a pause in time.

6. I think the idea behind the work is about a single man living in the contemporary world. He has his little apartment in New York City up on a high building, and we know this because of the Daily News newspaper on his table. It is clearly seen that he s single man because of the jacket seen on the chair and the mess on the table. On the newspaper is says Nuclear Arms Buildup, and on the wall there is a little painting with doves on it. This could mean that the man is worried about the world breaking out into a nuclear holocaust, but he just wants peace in the world. The time of day is nighttime with only the moon as the source of light. This could possible mean that is a time of fear or unhappiness. This painting could depict the fear of a possible nuclear outbreak from the evidence we have seen. All of the objects on the table could represent other countries. The hammer could be the Soviet Union because the hammer is a symbol on their flag. The teapot and plate could represent European countries like England or France.

7. The attributes of this work may include that people want peace in the world, they do not want to live in fear. The whole picture seems to be dark and dull making it feel as if it is a time of fear and darkness. The painting could also be a notion to the government or world that people fear the worst can happen with all these countries with nuclear weapons. We also notice that the place is New York City, if a bomb were to attack, New York would probably be one of the first places it would hit.

8. What attracted me to this painting was that it seemed as though a child could have painted it. The table has no perspective in relation to everything else including outside the window. The paints that were used, the objected drawn, and the feel seemed a bit childish too. This is why it took me a while to figure what the artists hidden meaning of the painting could be, even though I could be wrong. I stared and stared at the painting until finally I came up with some kind of idea. The fact that it seemed to be about a nuclear outbreak. This might be a little ridiculous, but at 1983 it could have been a threat at the time. I am sure that there are many different interpretations, but my opinion , I think, has much controversy.