I went to the San Diego Museum of Art. They had all kinds of art from different time periods from different parts of the world. They had a special exhibition on Indian art and a gallery of photos about the history of America. At first I went to Asian art section, which had some stuff from Japan and a sculptures related to Buddhism. There was this collection of swords that I found kind of interesting. A piece (painting? ) by Yoshitoshi Mori caught my eye, it was called Warrior on a Horse. I liked it because the horse looked very “cartoony”.
I think it was because the eyes were rather large. I went into another room with European art. The portraits I saw really put mine to shame, but there were plenty of ridiculously pale women and children back then. There was a panel called Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine with Saints and Angels by a workshop called the Master of Frankfurt. I thought the angel’s wings looked neat, it nice to see something different than the traditional white wings. I also saw this painting by Francisco de Zurbaran called Lamb of God.
It was a depiction of a lamb tied up with a halo around its head. I really liked the concept of that. I also liked Daniel Seghers’ Garland of Flowers with the Holy Family. It looks like memorial for the Holy Family, or a grave marker. I just think it looks pretty. I didn’t really find the Photo Gallery on America that interesting. It was called “Changing America”. I’m very critical on photographs, it doesn’t take that much skill to press a button, and the picture is a perfect representation of what you are trying to depict.
So I better be totally blown away by the subject of the photograph. Some photos seem to do their job; they did capture the essence of the time. But others I looked at just made me say, “what?? ” Another room featured only landscapes and cityscapes. I prefer landscapes/cityscapes to be without people. I don’t know why, I just like it like that. I also prefer photos I take when I go on vacation to be without people, drives my mom nuts. But anyways, in the room of 15 works, only one was without people, and it wasn’t really that great a scene.
I went into the gallery of American paintings, and saw this really nice landscape of a volcano. It was called Sandwich Islands, done by Jules Taverner. Plus, it didn’t have any people in it. It was very pretty, I liked it a lot. There were also a lot of still lifes, I thought it was funny to see dead animals in them. Although the place was huge, nothing really caught my eye. There was also a special gallery on Indian art (from India). I browsed by it pretty quickly, I didn’t see anything new. I grew up in Malaysia, which is pretty rich in Indian culture, so nothing really surprised or amazed me.
Overall the museum was ok, it wasn’t the greatest art museum I’ve been to, it wasn’t the worse either. Looking at the older painting I got this surreal feeling. I couldn’t believe that this picture was done at the time the tile said it was done. That this exact canvas was worked on hundreds of years ago. And if I followed this piece back in time to a certain point, some guy would be painting on it. I don’t know why, it was just hard to grasp. I also noticed that the more modern the artwork, the more it gets further away from naturalism.
The more recent works are not as real looking as the older ones. I really like naturalism better; I think it takes more skill to realistically depict something. When I look at a painting I want to feel like the artist is better than me, or seem more intelligent than me. It easier to look at a beautifully done landscape and feel that, than look at 3 squares. I know that the artist probably does have a thought process he/she goes through before painting merely 3 squares on the canvas, but it still doesn’t impress me much.
