Role In Art art160

     For this piece, I chose Grapes by Xu Wei from page 238 out of the book. When researching him, I found that while he has become generally recognized as one of the masters of Ming dynasty painting, and having inspired a new form of painting, he was relatively unsucessful in life. Many times the value of an artist is not truly known, untill after they are dead as reiterated on pg 40 "There is no artist like a dead artist, some dealers say."
    An excellent and informative site, also much preferable to the unreliable wikipidia, the following shows much of his art, and a brief amount of information.
    http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-xu-wei.php
In his painting Xu Wei introduced a style that means "sketching idea" called xie yi.  It focuses less on detailed depictions and is more abstract. While still representing an image, in this instance grapes, it doesnt try to capture it in almost photographic detail. Rather it lets the viewers mind put the images together. It is an attempt to show the concept or feeling of nature.
     In life, Xu Wei was thought to be bipolar, which was actually a recognized disorder in China at that time. On this site the correlation between creativity and bipolar disorder is discussed.
http://www.manic-depression.net/symptoms/creativity_symptom_of_bipolar_disorder.htm
     Other famous artists with bipolar disorder include but are not limited to, Emily Dickenson, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Tim Burton. 
http://www.neurotransmitter.net/bipolarcreativity.html
    When viewing this piece, I was struck by a sense of serenity. The greys and almost bluish tones may seem depressing to some, especially in light of the accompanying poem in calligraphy on the top and to the left on the painting, But one must remember that in expressing their creativity, a person with bipolar disorder often finds a sense of peace, the act of creating is cathartic. In his poem he references being an old man who is alone. This tells me that the piece was most likely painted after the death of his first wife, his murder of his second wife, and his subsequent incarceration and release from prison. As he sold his work to support himself, largely unsucessfully, the poem supports this when he says there is no place for him to sell the "bright pearls from my brush" Most likely the image of grapes itself is not a political statement, but the poem shows him as a percieved failure in life. This is especially poignant as he has become so widely recognized as not only a success but as a Master when dead.

Chester Arnold Part 2

When I looked up the word reclamation, on dictionary.reference.com I found that one of the definitions is "the process or industry of deriving usable materials from waste, by products, etc." and that the origins of the word is "in sense 'a protest'" and "crying out against". While this doesn't match with my own personal initial impression of a rebirth, it does fit with Chester Arnold's style. This made me remember another piece at the museum (I cannot remember the name). It was of a tree that had been felled. In the blurb next to it, the person wrote that the tree seemed to be "crying out" with its twisted limbs and roots. Back to "Reclamation", if the bramble is reclamation, it is dead having been cleared away from somewhere else to make that space more "usable". The thorns and tangles dominating the canvas arent exactly putting off a happy vibe. It seems the brush is angry at bing torn away and left dying against an old fence with other bits of refuse. The berries left on the vine seem to hint that in the process of making other space more "usable" by reclaiming it, whoever did so was wasteful in not clearing off all the berries, or perhaps using the waste brambles in some sort of mulch or compost. This theme of waste, especially to the detriment of the environment fits in with Arnold's work.
     Another thing I found a lot of when looking up the word "Reclamation" was the usbr.gov website "managing water in the west" there was a lot on that page that had to do with dams, powerplants, and similar projects. Knowing that Arnold is a western based artist, and the general theme of waste in his pieces, perhaps the choice of title means dissaproval for the Bureau of Reclamation, and for waste. Something "crying out against it. Also something I found interesting is that the website (usbr.gov/museumproperty/art) showed a project started in the 60's to showcase reclamation. There are many artists, but the artist from the west, Chester Arnold is not one of them, regardless of his great talent.

Chester Arnold

     At the museum I chose "Reclamation". I didn't want to pick a piece with any people on it. I also didn't want to pick a piece with any blurbs or explanations next to it to influence my take on it. This was one of his paintings without any water in it.
     It was a painting of a tangle of some sort of berry vine. There werent many leaves. The main colors were shades of green and brown, with some mauve-ish for the berries. The berry color struck me as odd because the there were plenty of thorns on the vine, like a blackberry bramble. As someone who has had plenty of memories raiding blackberries fresh off the vine, I have never seen a mauve blackberry. Although most of the painting was dominated by this massive berry bramble, there were bits of old wooden fence to one side and a few planks mixed in.
     The main thing that made me choose this piece is that it confused me. I could not tell whether the vine was dead or alive. The colors seemed to suggest that there was a touch of autumn about the vine, that and although there were berries, there weren't a lot of them. The few berries looked to be full grown rather than just beginning to grow. One view I could come away with is that the bramble was dead, having been recently cut and piled up against the old fence of some farm after harvest, with just enough life left in the vine to still show the green. This sort of "reclamation" is common enough practice on many farms. The other view, is that the vine was alive in the last breath of autumn, having grown massive and taken over the old wooden fence of a farm as a way of nature having "reclamation" over something man made from natural materials.
     Either way, the piece didn't strike me as negative, like many of his other pieces. Either view I came away with as hinting at rebirth. If it was dead vine having been cleared away after harvest, this would encourage new growth come spring. Berry vines, especially blackberry brambles, will come back year after year and regularly need this trim. If it was the living vine, then there is a rebirth of the wild reclaiming a habitat.