Palmer Art Museum

Francis Luis Mora, "Evening News," 1914, oil on canvas. Collection of Lee and Barbara Maimon.

It is a painting of four men and one women reading the newspaper on a subway train.  One of the women is not reading the paper she is also more vibrantly dressed than the other members on the train.  She is staring back straight at the viewer like she is sharing a secret with us.

The rhetorical situation is that all these people are reading the newspaper except her maybe to say that she is the news.  It might have been made by a supporter of woman's suffrage which would be consistent with the time period in which it was made.

The artist himself is originally from Ecuador.  He moved to the USA 1880 and became the first Hispanic member of the Nation Academy of Design.  He was a widely respected artist and has paintings hanging in many major art collections he seems like he is ethical.

I think the claim that the painting is making are that women are the news now.  Which seems like a logical claim it being the time period in the middle of the american woman's suffrage movement.

I would have never gone to the Palmer art museum on my own and I will never go back art through the medium of painting to me is something that does not interest me at all.  I believe that the amount of time and money that is spent on the arts is outrageous and something that as a tradition makes no more sense in our world of powerful technological media.  Back in the days where they didn't have I-Phone's they had nothing better to do than go stare at someones drawing or painting.  But now we have engaging media and film story telling devices that stimulate the senses just as much as any painting but are also capable of telling a narrative much easier than a single frame in a painting.  The last generation is dying off that had not been born with the visual stimulation of TV and the generation after that is getting old.  One day I believe that single frame painting will too pass into the oblivion of history because while the wheel of progress might be slowed by tradition it cannot be stopped.

Journal One

            I choose the template that I did because it was simple to look at and did not distract from the content.  The font and colors are all generic simple brands that only serve as a background for the writing in the blog.  I have not included any links at this time but when I do they will be links that are relevant to the journals that I enter into the blog.  I did not include anything about myself on my about me page because I think that the less you share about yourself on the internet the better.  I think my blog is a generic form of sharing information I think that if I share things that interest people then they will like it, and if not no one will care.  This blog is something I would never do on my own so in that way it is a good thing for me.  I guess I will try to learn about a new thing on the internet and get a new life experience.