Nefertiti not as beautiful?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/09/19/2010-09-19_new_research_shows_egyptian_beauty_nefertiti_may_not_be_a_beauty_after_all.html


In this article we find yet another story of the dispute over whether or not Neferititi was as beautiful as historians have made her to be. Neferititi's name means, "A beautiful woman has come" and yet as the article goes on, it tells us of proof that might dispute that. Recently reasearchers have found that the famous bust of Neferititi might be hiding things when a CT scan was done over it. Underneath it showed that she had wrinkles under her eyes and a bent nose.I don't know that I agree that Neferititi wasn't just as beautiful as she was said to be. What exactly was beauty back then though compared to now in her area of the world? There is no way for sure that we can say that at the time she was not considered beautiful because at the time things like wrinkles and crooked noses could have been atractive. It even states in the article that Cleopatra was shown as having a crooked nose on a coin and she is also considered a beauty of her time. The other thing is that maybe she wasn't considered beautiful for her outter features. Maybe she had a beautiful heart and soul that many people praised her for being. It's just hard to say whether or not Neferititi was as beautiful as she is said to be because what we consider beauty today isn't neccisarily what beauty was then.

The statue of Khafre

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/images/109images/egyptian/chephren_ka.jpg

The statue of Khafre is found in the valley temple of Khafre in Giza. This statue was quite interesting to me when reading and talking about it in class. The first thing that stuck out to me was the color of the statue. The statue is of the pharoh Khafre and is made of a unique stone that is similar to diorite. When the sun hits the stone it gives the eye a surprise of making the statue have a blue glow. Pharohs were considered divine so the play that the light has on the statue ends up showing that divinity with the glow that illuminates from it. Another interesting about the statue is that sitting behind Khafre's head is Horus, the falcon god. Horus is shown as protecting Khafre by sitting behind him and looking over him protectively. Along the side of the throne that Khafre sits on we see Lions which are to symbolize his power as Pharoh, along with lotus and papyrus that show his rule in both Lower and Upper Egypt. Khafre is wearing the outfit of a pharoh and his arms are close in with the rest of his body. The features on him aren't very detailed and yet stylized like we talked about in class. At the time, the people sculpting were very much into making lifelike figures that you could walk all the way around if you wanted to and this statue is a prime example of it.    

Collage

The first thing I wanted to do with my collage was put the order of the subject matter basically in order. So in the collage from right to left it goes history, world, country, town/community, friends/family and then me. The reason I chose that order was because history is what shaped the world, the world in a sense shaped each country including our own, the country has shaped how my state/town/community is, my town/community is what shaped my family and friends besides what their cultures, beliefs and more has taught them, and all of these things shape who I am so that's why I am last in the order. You will also see that the sections for history, world, country, and town only each have one line while the family/friends and me section have two. That is because my family and my friends are VERY important not only to me but to who I am as a person both inside and out. For the section on me, I had a hard time describing me in one line and even two lines wasn't enough but I picked the most important aspects of me. No matter how big the poster is to make a collage, I don't think you can fully describe a person because some things about a person don't come in the from looking at pictures, paintings, drawing, etc. They come from that person's personality.

• Color: I picked earth tones as my borders around my pictures. The reason I did that is because I love to be outdoors and since the collage is about me, it only fits to symbolize my love for the outdoors.
• Light: I picked dark to light and then light to dark as you go across the collage to make it more appealing to the eye as well as kind of symbolize that as you go through each subject matter, it shines more and more light on who I am as a person.
• Texture: I decided that for texture I would make the borders of the pictures different sizes and different shapes. None of them are the exact same even and as you go in towards the middle of the collage the sizes get smaller and then back to bigger on the outside.
• Volume: I used different colors as my borders to do this part as well as the pictures on the outside are a little darker but as you go in some grow lighter.
• Line: I wanted to draw a line that took the viewer from left to right, so the pictures not only go in vertical lines most times but the colors coordinate with it so it draws the eye across the lines.
• Space: I picked dark to light and then light to dark as you go across to make it more appealing as well as have a background (white) and a foreground (the four shades that act as borders for the pictures).
• Scale: The size of the borders show no importance within the collage but some of the pictures are bigger then others to show important people, places, and things.   
• Symbolism: The earth tones of the borders symbolize my love for outdoors, the picture of the family huddled close in symbolizes my family and the love I have for them, the picture of the camera with the heart next to it symbolizes my love for photography and my eventual career, the picture of the music note with the Jesus fish as the flag is my tattoo I have and it symbolizes music and faith which are the two biggest things in my life (it's on my foot because I walk by faith and I wouldn't be walking without my faith and music) and the borders get smaller as you go into the middle where my name is because all of the things in the pictures are what makes me who I am.  

Individual Blog #1 part 2

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129598553

This article popped out at me right away when I read it. It's about how whether or not selling an art collection that was given to Fisk University by Georgia O'Keeffe here in Nashville would save the school from closing. The art is worth $75 million dollars all together and the school is trying to sell the artwork. Many don't think it is right to sell the art let alone take it from the south so both the Georgia O'Keeffe estate and the state of Tennessee have filed for them not to be sold.  I agree that it's on the brink of closing. I don't agree on the sale of the art that Frisk wants to do and I think in time, the school unfortunately will close unless they find a better way to fund the school. The author's thesis is that the school is on the brink of closing. The art collection donated by Georgia O'Keeffe  is a point of joy for many as well as being somewhat of a problem for the school. It is hard for the school to keep up the school and collection along with other collections within the school and yet for many it is a part of the south's history that needs to stay here. The author goes onto then talk about how there have been many court cases involved with the situation including the current one in which the school wants to sell the art "half-share" to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentoville, Ark where it would rotate between the school and the museum for $30 million dollars. The state of Tennessee has been given until September 8th to find a way to keep the art here in Nashville while Fisk has until October 8th to come up with a contract with the museum to works better with what Georgia O'Keeffe wanted done with the art. There is a lot about dispute in this article and many times there is dispute about a meaning behind a piece of art or over whether the art is worth a certain amount of money.   

Individual Blog #1

Frederic Churchs' The Parthenon is a painting that we talked a lot about in class this week. What I found really interesting is the horizontal line that runs through the background of the photo. The mountains or hills that are behind The Parthenon run a horizontal line through the painting. What is interesting about it is that the mountains/ hills is that they aren't higher than The Parthenon showing just how important that it is. During the time that The Parthenon was at its highest glory, it was a temple that was to Athena who they considered as a goddess who protected them. In the painting The Parthenon is higher than anything else maybe showing not only how important it is but also the importance of the protection that they believed Athena gave them. Light shines down on The Parthenon in the painting almost like the goddess herself was appearing or coming to appear in her temple.
 Another interesting thing I found in the painting was that the way that everything is set in the painting, there seems to be a triangle that runs the eye right into The Parthenon. The point of the triangle would be the Parthenon and the dark area that is in the shadow would be the sides while the base runs in the foreground. We see triangles in many of the older paintings and maybe this one was just as important as those with the triangles.