Ryan's Museum Visit; Nasher Sculpture Center.

Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian Girl ca. 1896:

In honor of my groups namesake, and much to my girlfriend and fellow museum visitors chagrin, I decided to do my analysis on a Paul Gauguin piece, from his time in Tahiti.(Although I very much wanted to do the below mentioned Walking to The Sky Borofsky installation!) Tahitian Girl is one of two Gauguin works at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the other a clay sculpture, and is a little over 37” tall.

Paul Gauguin left his native France for Tahiti, in search of a life untouched by modernity. While there he experimented in carving wood, clay sculpting, and continued painting, and created Tahitian Girl ca. 1896, created from two separate but conjoined wood carvings. The Head, and Torso are conjoined by a small metal bracket on the back and the seam is covered by a felt necklace. The necklace includes a mother-of-pearl amulet, a braid, and a small pink shell.

What interested me most, and certainly first, about this piece was that of the two conjoined but very much different wood carvings. The Head is a smooth, well proportioned, but oversized contrast to the more rough or coarse body. The stern stare in the eyes of the head piece, also seem to give a different tone than the relaxed, slightly limp body form. One notices fairly quickly these night and day differences, but after more analysis the head and chin angle, not just the eyes, seem to also command this proud quality; where as the body is much more laid back of sorts, possibly timid.

Gauguin expressed a slightly more organic, ‘quick handed’ of sorts style, with visible ‘shavings’ left un-finished, guiding faint highlights and shadows in and throughout the torso, arms, and legs; Thus contributing to the already hodge-podge nature of the work. As stated, the un-finished shavings, guide interesting highlights and shadows in the body form, but the head (in person really) has a much more polished nature to it. The head has no visible cut, or chisel lines, conveying a more tedious carving process.

Upon close inspection the felt necklace is nailed right above the shoulders, a crude covering job, suggesting all together maybe Gauguin felt the more contrasting and misplaced the two pieces seemed the better. I agree, what I enjoy most about the piece is its eerie, almost creepy presence, and questionable nature from the apparent separate and unrelated, Head and Body parts. It has a mysterious archaic character to it, but making it all the more enjoyable being made in the 1890’s.

The Tahitian Girl also seems to embody Gauguin’s own experience in his getaway. Tahiti was not untouched like Gauguin envisioned, linked by industrial might, like the metal column linking the piece, a Tahitian woman head-strong, proud, and beautiful, but still very much native, rough, and uncertain. Or maybe after 500 words, I’ve gone off track, (the latter is more likely). Although after considering all of the above, I wonder if Gauguin intended the two separate pieces for each other all along, or in a fit of inspiration grabbed a bracket and some nails.

Can you tell who is who? Haha

Paragone Discussion;

As a group we agreed that in many ways Leonardo's argument holds merit, being that painting often utilizes complex color and lighting schemes, but it is not flawless. Painters as well all know can get just as dirty as sculptors, having said that sculpting doesn't necessarily involve the monotonous chisel chipping of marble as described by Leonardo's Paragone. But these are unimportant, in ones perspective no artwork or style thereof can be considered superior, one could argue its difficulty or complexity, but this is not a determining factor.

Representing textures, form, style, on canvas or on stone, is no different, yes there are unique factors to each but neither requires vaster knowledge or a more skilled artist. The group entirely agreed that representing three-dimensional forms in two-dimensions is in theory more complex than sculpting. But that is like star gazing through your front door peep hole, you are not getting the whole picture.

The Paragone was a very thought provoking dialog, although a seemingly simple if not elementary topic, there is much to be said in ones reasoning. After this discussion and the previous assignment, I and my group members have learned, that when evaluating or interpreting art, the medium or style is about as meaningless as the creator in how it interacts with the viewer. With such a conclusion one makes it hard to advocate one form over another. Leonardo is not wrong in his argument, he just isn't entirely right.

Ryan C. (Tech Expert/Writer)

Mary C. (Communicator/Contributor)

Richard P. (Contributor)

Richard's 'Road' Perspective

For this drawing I simply chose the foreground to 

consist of closer things such as buildings, roads, 

etc, while the sun and sky makes up the background. 

The subject shown in the foreground and in the 

distance mainly is  the road and single building to 

give an idea of the perspective. The vanishing point

was the center right between the sun and road to show

distance throughout.

Ryan's 'Buddha' Soap Sculpture

Unfortunately I pre-saved this image from my home pc, and cant seem to find out how to rotate it on this UTA pc. Please forgive me :). I started out with my Ivory soap bar, and after determining it lacked the thickness to carve a polar bear...I decided on Buddha! I used a small statue for reference, and made my initial cuts on the face with a taught guitar string, to help determine my boundaries. Then used an X-Acto knife to make more precise cuts, but the best tool was the blunt end of a calligraphy pen, which smoothly 'shaved' off soap allowing for a more accurate carving.

Mary's 'Farm' One Point Perspective

When you drive out West where there is lots of open land, you come across many fields of corn, wheat, and cotton. I have sketched my interpretation of the many trips I have taken where I have seen these fields. I have incorporated the aerial perspective with the hills beyond the fields. The large farm building is in the foreground as well as the background, and almost everything comes to one specific point, which is my vanishing point.