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.