The Museum Visitation

THE MUSEUM VISITATION

The metropolitan museum of art is known around the world. Its entrance is an invitation to a journey that travels through culture and history. Its grandiose architecture consists of arcuated pillars located at the main entrance, and an arcade around the building. As well as the outside, the interior of the museum impresses with its no modest grandiosity. It presents the visitors with its domes located in a very high altitude. As I waked through the various sections of the museum I noticed that the decoration changes according to the section. In fact, the decoration was so appropriate that I had the feeling of being a participant of the presentations. In addition, its decoration intrigued me to explore the mysterious objects from each culture as much as possible. Another important aspect of its interior is the way its attractions are presented; everything is very well labeled, clean, neat, and explained with historical facts which makes the visitors more aware of what they are seeing. As I went to the museum for a visit, I randomly picked the Vincent Van Gogh’s “self Portrait with a Straw Hat” and the Lee Krasner’s “Night Creatures” for a comparative analysis.

Vincent Van Gogh was born in March 30, 1853, and before engaging in his artistic career at the age of 27, he worked in various art galleries (Petersen). Although Van Gogh developed and perfected techniques that led art to the post impressionism period and is considered a genius, he did not achieve recognition until after his dramatic death (Petersen). One of his paintings the portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold in an auction almost 100 years after his death for $82.5 million; the highest prize paid for a piece of art (Kehoe).

“Self Portrait with a Straw Hat” was depicted by the artist Vincent Van Gogh in 1887 and it is considered to belong to the artistic period post-impressionism. Van Gogh developed the style and techniques depicted in the piece which consists of expressive lines. Additionally Oil in canvas and paint brush was used by the artist as medium. Also, the presentation of the piece is framed and it takes place in an altar. The piece’s title “Self Portrait with a Straw Hat” explains that the content of the piece is the depiction of his own appearance.

Lee Krasner was born in Brooklyn in New York City, and found herself wanting to be an artist at a young age (metmuseum.org). She began studying at Cooper Union in 1926 and later she studied at the National Academy of Design in 1929 (metmuseum.org). Hans Hofmann was the one who Krasner first worked with and also who encouraged her to explore her artistic talents of focus on color and lyrical abstraction (metmuseum.org). Before having abstraction as her principal way of expression, Krasner had interest in Realism and Surrealism. Despite of the fact that her husband’s works – the famous painter Jackson Pollock - eclipsed