As an Art History major, I love to discuss different elements of an artwork in order to try and extract its message or purpose. However, in researching and analyzing the statue of Joan of Arc for our Creative Comparison project, I felt the work come alive in a way I have not experienced before. Having learned so much about Joan's story through other works of art (namely Shaw's play and the silent film) and in reading about her life in articles, I felt I had a pretty complete understanding of the various aspects of her character and the traits that are commonly emphasized. As I began to look at this statue and search for clues of its meaning, I found that the knowledge I had gathered about the subject gave the work so much more depth of meaning than I might otherwise have found. Instead of searching for a reason why the sculptor, Emmanuel Fremiet, made the choices that he did, I was struck by the clarity with which I was able to understand his motivations and purpose in creating the work. Each detail began to make sense in relation to the whole and also in a way that contributed something to the overall message.
In a similar way, I was very interested in all of the Art Talks that we heard on Monday. Adding a level of familiarity to any artwork allows the viewer to connect with it on a deeper level. Specifically, as the speakers the two other presentations linked their paintings to the life and work of Coco Chanel, I immediately had a point of reference from which to more fully understand the context and intention of the painter and work.
This is a fine testimony to your major, and the skills you have developed as an interpreter of iconography and aesthetics. I find it interesting that you did not mind the connections, however anachronistic, that people made between art work of the 1700s and a woman who lived in the 1800s-1900s. The more I work with art in my classes, the more I realize how important it is to allow people to make and articulate their own connections to the works. We may forget facts about the background (and can relearn them again!), but we rarely forget the emotional impact we felt or the memories that emerged from spending time in the presence of a powerful work of art. Enjoying art with a guide who encourages a variety of connections between art and politics, aesthetic styles, and historical trauma, as you and Kendall allowed us to do, made for a very meaningful experience. Thank you.
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