The art world today, inundated with pretentious dilettantes struggling
to make an effort to appear lofty and classy before society, sometimes
forgets one of the most important concepts of creating art itself.
That is to say, the concept of creating art for the sake of releasing
emotion or sending a message sometimes becomes lost in an illusion
that people are constantly competing. What one must keep in mind is,
is that some birth creations, not in an effort to gain the fame and
honor of becoming the next Da Vinci or van Gogh, but instead to create
canvases splattered upon with their own emotion—the original idea of
art, per se. People spend too much time focusing on and praising the
old, that they do not realize how much beauty that the new art can
hold With this in mind, the two images, Rain Spell and Umbrella
Liability Protection, were selected not only because of their linking
similarity that lies behind the theme of “umbrellas,” but also because
they are both relatively unknown pieces.
Despite the fact that the two images hold the same theme, however,
they managed to be quite different from one another. An unknown artist
created Rain Spell and portrayed his work on a fantasy artwork gallery
on the Internet. At a first glance, one could notice the bizarre,
surreal aspects of the painting that notably jump out at one’s eyes.
The painting within the painting reaches out—the water of the ocean in
the landscape behind the female stretches forward, away from the
boundaries of the frame, stretching out as the hand of a curious
infant would stretch. To add to the strange nature of the creation,
the girl, standing centered in her environment, manages to balance an
umbrella perfectly perpendicular to the ground while her hand leaks
with droplets of water. Her face fails to hint at any note of
perplexity; everything to her is not of the unordinary. Rain Spell’s
artist deserves praise for the incorporation of these elements that
break the natural laws of the “normal world,” for it succeeds in
seeding the question that image was meant to embed into the observer’s
brain. “What is going on?” the observer of the painting asks himself.
A criticism on the composition of the water, however, does exist. The
water that reaches out of the depths of the landscape behind the
female appears to be awkward. The artist’s attempt seemed as if he was
trying to overlap two worlds together, though with the angling of the
water reaching out, it appears as if a third world was added. Instead,
the water stretching away form the background landscape should be
composed as a falling gush of waterfall in order to bridge the two
worlds together effectively without awkwardness. Still, the painting
does contain an array of redeeming qualities. The artist of Rain Spell
is a master of repetition, in colour as well as in shapes. Three basic
colours are found in this piece: red, blue, and white (including
off-white). The red on the tiles, wall, and in the girl’s clothing
reciprocate  the red found on the flaps of the umbrella. Blues from
the oceanic landscape’s water and sky tie in with the wall of the
world in which the girl stands. White reciprocates in the girl’s skin,
umbrella, bubbling tops of the water, lines of the floor, and finally,
the paper boat placed off-centre to the right. Red and blue are
compositionally placed together to make the colors bold. They are not
next to each other on the color wheel , nor are they complementary
colors, thus in turn they seem to stick out noticeably from each
other—almost as if the colors represent the two worlds that exist in
the piece. The reciprocation weaves the subjects of the painting
together tightly. The repeated patterns of the droplets falling from
the girl’s left hand cleverly repeat its shape in the wallpaper, all
the more adding in artistic elements that help tie in the two worlds
of the painting together. Again, repetition is seen with the
horizontal lines of the girl’s stockings and in the vertical lines of
the wall standing behind her. The tone emitting from the painting is
an overall calm—nothing strange and out of the ordinary. The bizarre
breaking of the laws of nature in the painting sitting adjacently to
the calm, composed girl contrast each other to effectively create a
surreal piece that causes the observer to ponder upon why the female
is oblivious to the strange happenings. The piece shows that overall
people wish to find explanations for the peculiar. When people look at
something that they do not understand, it irks them—bothers them to
near insanity until they are forced to find the answer to the “why”
lurking in their minds. Rain Spell also demonstrates the affinity that
people have to “magic.” Why does fiction sell well? Why do people
enjoy what they are well aware is make-believe? Sometimes seriousness
and the ordinary is just simply boring.
In comparison, the artist of Umbrella Liability Protection chose to
instill mystery just as the artist of the previous piece had done,
though through different, more comical elements. The medium of the
piece is by photograph in sepia. Due to the lack of color in the
artwork, lighting takes on a heavier role in this piece than in Rain
Spell. Distributed throughout the piece evenly, the lighting in the
piece is not so dark that the painting feels macabre, though it is not
so bright that the subject seems jumpily cheerful. Instead, the light
is subdued enough to produce, with the addition of a well-dressed man
sitting upon a ladder at a beach, another oblivious-to-the-bizarre
that also was emitted from the previous artwork. The photograph
“breaks” one of the rules of art that states that horizons should
remain horizontal by adding a tilt to the shot. This might have been
done to add to the foreboding effect. If one takes into account of the
title, Umbrella Liability Protection, one realizes that the artwork is
a literal rendering of a figurative definition. Literally, according
to the LMS Prolink Ltd. page, umbrella liability protection is,
“designed to protect you and your family against catastrophic lawsuits
or judgments.” With this given information, the piece undertakes a
humorous tone. This thus qualifies it to be a nice piece of artwork,
for it attempts to bend away from the norm. It demonstrates how, as
humans, we must learn to laugh through life. Not everything should be
taken seriously. The photograph also demonstrates how fear-driven
people of the United States can be at times. In today’s society, so
many people are in search of insurance of all sorts, they might even
be afraid of their own shadow. The umbrella concept here denotes
protection—a place where one could sit under the shade of safety,
perhaps.
Both of the pieces play off the element of oddness to grab hold of
their audience’s attention. Although the two themes surrounding the
umbrellas are quite different, they both show how humans are curious
in nature. Automatically humans search for a pattern—a picture that
makes sense out of what seems like nonsense.

Same Anderson’s voice in his book review donned a coat of comedy as well as a “chillaxed,” laid back persona. He poked fun at the author’s image on the cover, and went into detail about how the shortcuts in life were everywhere, and described how he was wily enough to find and use them during his school days. The voice was casual in a way that one would chat about a book over coffee with an acquaintance. As for how detailed the review was, Anderson made sure to add in just enough information to explain what the basic idea of the book was about. The evidence that he uses in his review was not so descriptive. He described in his review more about his own life experience more so than the book itself. This could possibly have indicated that the book he was reviewing is not even worth reading or that he in fact wrote the review without reading it completely. Perhaps Anderson skimmed a few pages here and there and hacked away at his computer as he wrote his book review, which in the end seemed to leave its audience content since it is jam packed with personality—sarcasm, casual tone, and edge to his criticisms that stings a bit with a touch of humour (“My God, he’s about to think!”)

What is it about?
In a review by Edmund White of the memoir About my Life and the Kept Woman, a Mexican-American named John Rechy struggles to fit in with society when he discovers once and for all that he is homosexual. The period of gay liberation would occur far after the author’s prime, that is the 1940s, and would suffer from the staunchest discrimination, especially from his macho Latino father.

How good is it?

The book did a good job of analyzing the detail and mentality of John Rechy in his review. An example would be how he questioned to what magnitude did the people in Rechy’s life act the way they were described to have acted. He noted how the author was narcissistic, and was proud of it through the analysis of quotes here and there in the book review. The review author also did well with familiarizing himself with Rechy’s books written previously, and compared them in quality and style as well in his review.

What context will help explain its place in the culture?

The context of the review was in America, during the mid 1900s. The Mexican-Americans were and still are a minority group, which in turn came with a whole band of prejudices. The reviewer mentions how for a prom date John Rechy (being an Anglo-looking Mexican) was able to capture the heart of a white girl, though without her knowing that he was Mexican. However, when he was brought to her house, the girl’s mother protested, “There is no way in hell will my daughter go out with a Mexican.” This helped paint the amount of racism that the book’s author had to live through. Also, the book reviewer mentioned the hardships of homosexuals during Rechy’s time, pre-homosexuality-liberation era.

In Riboud’s “Camera-Shy” series, this photo was taken in Red Square in 1957. The photo is curious, because it uses edge activation. The subject is close to the camera, and is slightly blurred, giving it the essence of being rushed-in at and invaded. The subjects of the photo are placed off-centre as well, giving it a better feeling of motion (use of rule of thirds). The man in the mid-ground portion of the image stares back confidently at the camera. His juxtaposition next to the blurred man covering his face heightens the effect of hiding, because the two subjects contrast each other. Speaking in painter’s terms, the photo is somewhat like an impressionist painting, because although the picture is a portrait, the subjects are not posing. At the left side of the image a women eyes are half-closed and lips are pursed in a way that suggests that she was captured mid-sentence. To the right in the background of people, a man smiles and his gaze is off to the side. The positioning of the two main subjects demonstrates use of diagonal lines. This in turn feeds a sense of heightened interest capturing. The photography could have instead aligned the men in a horizontal line across the page, though this would have made the picture seem blander. When looking for balance, the photographer managed to capture it through the use of both organic and geometric lines. The direction of the geometric lines on the building helps stay consistent with the diagonal line feel (the helps add in to the sense of emotion). The people and buildings in the far background of the photo are blurry and add depth to the image. Overall the piece, in my opinion is well composed, and had been taken with surprising good quality, considering the cameras available at the time.

The two criticisms of “The Fog of War” that I had chosen to read were by Mick LaSalle and Michael Wilmington. Both explain how the movie did an excellent job of putting into perspective the reasoning for why a man—brilliant in mind though viewed as ruthless devil in the media—decided to do what he did. I disagreed with the critics. Although with the death count climbing when in the face of war, it is always easy to point the finger to one man, a movie is not effective when people just do not care. I remember watching the movie, and wrestling against sleep. In fact, towards the end of the movie only three of the students in the class had managed to stay awake/not let their mind wander off to do some other more interesting task on the computer. Perhaps I feel this way, because I do not care much about the topic, however. There were certain techniques of the movie that I found interesting, however. An aspect of the movie that I found to be helpful was the use of the “Rules.” They broke down the main points of McNamara’s reasoning and justification. (The only problem was, was that when McNamara was actually talking, he made people give in to the call of sweet, sweet slumber.) The music of the video was not bad, either. It played in a minor key, giving it a dark, effect. His cold look directly into the camera was startling at times—rather, the first few times. The technique grew repetitive after a while. People know McNamara is an educated man and probably has an IQ higher than anyone else’s in the class, but the justification that he used was not strong at all in my eyes. He spoke about what happened in history, though his arguments basically was him speaking in broad terms and state “it seemed to be the smartest thing to do.”

The two criticisms of “The Fog of War” that I had chosen to read were by Mick LaSalle and Michael Wilmington. Both explain how the movie did an excellent job of putting into perspective the reasoning for why a man—brilliant in mind though viewed as ruthless devil in the media—decided to do what he did. I disagreed with the critics. Although with the death count climbing when in the face of war, it is always easy to point the finger to one man, a movie is not effective when people just do not care. I remember watching the movie, and wrestling against sleep. In fact, towards the end of the movie only three of the students in the class had managed to stay awake/not let their mind wander off to do some other more interesting task on the computer. Perhaps I feel this way, because I do not care much about the topic, however. There were certain techniques of the movie that I found interesting, however. An aspect of the movie that I found to be helpful was the use of the “Rules.” They broke down the main points of McNamara’s reasoning and justification. (The only problem was, was that when McNamara was actually talking, he made people give in to the call of sweet, sweet slumber.) The music of the video was not bad, either. It played in a minor key, giving it a dark, effect. His cold look directly into the camera was startling at times—rather, the first few times. The technique grew repetitive after a while. People know McNamara is an educated man and probably has an IQ higher than anyone else’s in the class, but the justification that he used was not strong at all in my eyes. He spoke about what happened in history, though his arguments basically was him speaking in broad terms and state “it seemed to be the smartest thing to do.”

In his essay, Canaday compares the portraits of two families: the Belleli family, and the Peale family. In his analysis of the Peal family, he mentions the placements of the subjects. He criticizes how the people, because they were all painted separately at different days over the period of many years, did not look as if they harmonically sat together. The composition of their positioning was awkward, and thus did not emit much emotion. He also takes note into the detail of the proportion sizes. He notes how the arm of the grandmother is abnormally large. He notes how Peale also awkwardly places the man in the composition over the sister in the far left. He sought meaning in the piece by noting how it was more of a “family” because in the composition the man was sketching the grandmother, thus tying in the two divided groups of the painting into a whole. He decides that the Peale family is not a terribly awful piece, though it does have its flaws with a bit of “dryness” to it. The Bellelli family, however, was looked at in a better light. He analyzed the relationship between the people in the painting—how the father was removed in the family just as he probably was in real life. The positioning of the subjects was critically looked at as well. For example, the little girl in the centre of the composition was “conflicted” according to Canaday, for her body stayed close to her mother, though it “longingly” looked towards her father. I agree with Canaday to say that the Bellelli Family by Degas was a better portrait overall. It showed the relationship—the attachment as well as the tension living amongst the members. The Peale Family portrait was not bad, though I was not struck with the same feeling of a real sense of “family” in it.

Photos make the actions of the past timeless. It is a medium in which one could gaze into what has happened and interpret for oneself instead of having the story “tainted” per se by another person if that other person told one what happened orally. What makes this set of photos intriguing is the ugliness of it–the ugliness that existed in America during the mid 1900s and what still exists in the U.S. as well. Photographs are amazing in power in that they allow people to be moved in a way that words cannot. Emotions sometimes cannot be framed by words.
The two photographs that I found to be the most disturbing were the photo of the white man “soiling” glory as he viciously tried to stab a “black” man with the oh-so-glorious American flag and the photo of the woman and child falling from a building as they tried to escape the fire. An interesting thing to not about why these photos are interesting is the fact that they are close up–closer to the action. When one rids a photo of negative space, one makes the picture more capturing–and sometimes in effect, scarier as well. When people look upon the photo of the American flag being used as a weapon, it instils a sense of horror and shock. So many people esteem the country to be the “land of the free” or the “land of opportunity”…just althemore better than other countries, correct? Though how could people much such claims when an atrocity as such is held before ones eyes?
Another aspect of the series that piqued interest was the fact that many of these photos showed up in newspapers. Oddly enough, this entire week in Mrs. Bonner’s social psychology class had we been going over how there is so much violence in the media. This only supports such claims. Does America wish to instil fear among its citizens or does she merely wish to inform? Who knows…

Furiously tapping her pencil away on the top of her desk, bouncing her leg, checking the clock every thirty seconds…Lucretia was bored as ever in her second period class. After being accepted into UW, she just could not find the motivation to work diligently anymore. Day in and day out of the first three years of high school, she had been applying her brainpower to her assignments. Now, however, what’s the point? She’s already been accepted, and it seems highly unlikely that they would spit her out of their system if her grades were not perfect A’s as usual. Succumbing to the oh so sweet laziness factor, Lucretia ceased to turn in assignments, stopped tuning her ears onto the teacher’s voice during lectures, failed to turn in several class assignments, etc., the typical senior-itus thing. Third quarter grades were going out now. She stretched lazily just as a lounging cat would do on a hot summer day. With her mind paying more attention to the brownish specks on the carpet floor, Lucretia waited patiently as her teacher handed her the report card. Uh-oh. Three Cs, two Bs, and an A in her PE class. What are her parents going to do? To her? Then, an idea struck her. She dashed home, ran to the mailbox, and quickly grabbed the letters sitting within. She furiously shuffled through the envelopes, until she found what she wanted. Then, making her way to the door of her house, weaved her way around the furniture in her living room, and turned on the fireplace. With a toss she set aflame the quarter grade report card. Ah, yes. Mission complete. Maybe she’ll make up for it during the second quarter of the semester?

…and summarize, explain the claim, note the strategies, and comment on our opinion of the claim’s validity.

Summary: Shelly expresses how he believes that the writes of today will be poets as great as those who have not existed since the time of religious liberty was struggled for. These people know the absolute truth of the world and transcend ordinary, everyday language to accomplish this. The best way to persuade someone to see a beneficial point of view is through poetry.

Claim: The claim is the poetry and poets contain the truth of the universe and they are omniscient

Claim’s Validity: The best way to persuade someone to see a beneficial point of view is through poetry. (“national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry”) They are able to move people with their “electric life”, because they draw the ability, “power”, from their “own soul”, that is to say, the deep feelings and thoughts from within.

Rhetorical strategy:
• He constructs lengthy sentences to drive a point (semi-colons!)
• Metaphors
• Visual
• Persona: that of an educated person; uses sophisticated diction “hierophants”