Artworks from Different Types of Settings (Museum vs. gallery)

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Artworks from Different Types of Settings (Museum vs. gallery)

Format MLA

Volume of 4 pages (1100 words)
Assignment type : Term paper

Description
2 artworks of your choice from 2 different types of settings; i.e., museum versus gallery, professional versus college/community performance, private versus public architecture, etc.

• describe both artifacts fully,
• analyze them, and
• discuss the points of similarity and of difference.

Artworks from Different Types of Settings (Museum vs. gallery)
For this project, I chose to focus on two artworks from a museum setting and a gallery setting. The first art work is an oil on canvas which I found at the Columbus Museum of Art. The second artwork was a painting on wood which I found at the Columbus State Community College library gallery on the second floor. This paper aims to describe both art works and analyzes my experience with the two settings.
The oil on canvas located at the Museum and titled “Christ Triumphant Over Sin and Death” by Peter Paul Rubens is produced in the early 1600s. It depicts the risen Christ as a robust and heroic figure rather than a serious, slender and sensitive figure which artists leading up to Rubens’ time often painted Christ as. On the painting, Christ is shown sitting on a short bench holding a stick. His left foot steps on a snake with a skull underneath it. You find two angels standing to the left side of Christ leaning towards him and a third angel is seen behind him covering his hair with a white cloth. In this painting Rubens adapted his art in the service of the Roman Catholic Church by depicting Christ’s victory over sin (symbolized by the snake) and death (symbolized by the skull.) Rubens’ huge art work is found hanging on a wall in one of the exhibition rooms in the museum. It is about 7 feet long and about 5 feet wide. This art work which focuses on a religious topic, makes use of curved line to portray Jesus as a human figure drawn to a large scale. The angels beside Jesus are however drawn to a smaller scale and they have wings. There is much use of light at the center highlighting Jesus with a white cloth covering his mid-section and use of primary colors with high intensity such as red while the corners of the artwork are dark with the use of tertiary colors such as brown.
The painting on wood found at the gallery and titled “Wandjina Art” is an authentic aboriginal work of art produced by Waigan in 1968. This artwork is a representation of a Wandjina, originating from cave paintings in Kimberly, Western Australia. The Wandjina figures are cloud spirits and fertility sources of the Kimberly region. As found in caves, they are huge man-like beings which are sometimes over twenty feet tall. The Wandjina figure is shown to have an elaborate head-dress which is also the cloud. Long protuberances which are seen issuing from the hair of the figures are both the feathers which the Wandjina wore and the lightning which he controls. The dual interpretation according to the artist, means that the clouds which herald the arrival of the monsoon are thought to be the Wandjina themselves. The Wandjinas are thought of as beings in the clouds. Waigan’s art work is reduced to a smaller miniature scale. It is only about 5 centimeters long and about 3 centimeters wide. This artwork on wood uses only one tertiary color, brown with low intensity.
One similarity I noticed between the two settings – the museum and the library’s gallery was that, the exhibitions were just for display and not for sale. Another similarity was that they were open to the public. However, there were huge differences as well.
First, the museum charges a fee at the entrance whereas the gallery does not. The artworks at the museum were mostly in an open space but most of the artworks at the library were in an enclosed glass case. The museum had a larger audience with people of all ages looking around.
The atmosphere at the museum was somewhat quiet with some groups of people viewing the artworks. There was a large group that had a tour guide taking them around the different sections of the museum, talking about the lives of the artists and explaining the artworks to them. The Columbus Museum of Art is a big building with two floors. It is divided into different sections. The art gallery at the Columbus State Community College library on the other hand was an extremely quiet environment which is not surprising because it is located in a school library. It is a really small gallery with few collections. There was no audience looking at the artworks. The only people around were students studying. Overall, I liked the museum setting better because there were a lot more collections to see and make comparisons.

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