Mental Illness: Psychiatry vs. Science

Mental illness is something that has been taken more seriously in the past decade. The only cases that were taken seriously, or acted upon were those where the patients were so crazy that they had to reside in a psychiatric hospital or nursing home, kept in a straight jacket. Now, even mild forms of mental illness like depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder are taken very seriously as a result of the increased rates of suicide. In fact, most college campuses have counseling centers as well as medical doctors for mental health to aid students with signs of depression. They even counsel students who are stressed over academics or personal issues who do not have signs of depression. Why has mental illness increased in seriousness? It is because of studies in both scientific and psychiatric fields that helped people realize the seriousness and reality of mental illness, specifically depression.

Some people believe that mental illness is a myth, like Michael Cornwall. He thinks that depression and the way people deal with their emotions is just another thing that makes humans unique from one another. Some people cut as a result of sadness, some people cry, some people consult in violence. Cornwall seems to think that these things are nothing but coping mechanisms, and every copes in different ways for different situations. He thinks that forced medication and permanent residence in mental hospitals are violations of human rights. However, science has since proven that brain connections and hormone levels are off balance in people that have been diagnosed with depression, and that medication improves the hormone imbalances lessening the symptoms. People with this condition find it hard to function. They feel tired, sad, and pessimistic about almost everything in life. Science also proves that some people develop depression without any reason at all. They have great, happy lives and randomly develop depression. Science has linked this to several different factors. The size of the hippocampus part of the brain surprisingly contributes, as well as nerve cells in the brain. For example, some nerve receptors may be over sensitive or insensitive to a certain neurotransmitter, making the reaction to be excessive or inadequate. Antidepressants are designed to provide a balance of the receptors. A deficiency of certain vitamins are factors as well, like B12. Endocrine disorders can contribute as well, because the endocrine releases hormones and if the endocrine is not working properly, it can cause too little or too much of a certain hormone being released causing off balances in the body, leading up to depression. However, some people that are diagnosed with situational depression. In other words, a traumatic event has happened in their lives to cause them to get upset and they can no recover quickly enough, so they get trapped in their feelings of despair. In these cases, psychiatrists focus on the specific reason why someone has come to develop depression and find a way to train the patient’s brain to cope with the event that caused it as well as events in the future to prevent them from developing depression again.

Some people develop depression as a result of events like a major loss (death of a family member) or a traumatic event (being in a bad car accident.) When things like this happen to people, it is easier for them to recover from depression than those who develop it from biological causes. This is because most of the time these people learn to cope with it and move on after consulting with a counselor for several weeks. The role of a psychiatrist in these situations is to meet with the patient weekly to track their progress and analyze their change in mood to see if what they are doing is helping to reduce, and eventually eliminate, their depression. Psychiatrists are good at noticing when someone is lying or hiding their true feelings, so they are there to provide the proper care and medications if needed. Anxiety can also be a result of situational events. For example, someone who has been lied to by numerous people that they trusted could develop social anxiety. They are more likely to constantly think that no one is honest with them. Another example is male who was rapped or molested as a child, so they do not like people standing behind them. In these situations, counseling would most likely help with their anxiety more than medication would.

Psychiatry is more understanding with the way people respond to depression more than science is. Science would argue that the way that people react is a result of their genes or chemical balances in their brain, while psychiatry says that it is just the way a person deals with things. In fact, a study found a link between mental illness and smoking. The results showed that almost half of those who are diagnosed with depression smoke tobacco. Coming from someone who is currently dealing with depression, believe that this is because when someone is depressed or unhappy with their life, they are likely to do destructive things to their body, like smoking, drinking, cutting, and develop eating disorders. These things provide temporary relief to the person, which only worsens the next event, and since those who smoked after being diagnosed with depression have higher quitting rates than any other group, it only provides psychiatry with another reason to say that people's reactions to their depression is not science based.

Ultimately, science and psychiatry agree that depression can be a cause of biological factors like hormonal imbalances. They especially agree that those who commit homicide are mentally ill. However, science fails to agree with psychiatry when psychiatrists argue that some cases are strictly situational. They also disagree when it comes to treatment. Psychiatry thinks that a lot of healing starts with visiting a counselor and that most of the healing is a result of that while medications only aid in the process and acts almost as a placebo effect, while science thinks that you must start with what could be medically wrong and talking with a counselor or friend only helps somewhat with the healing process. So in conclusion, terms of depression between both fields are very similar, it is just the way that the patients are treated where there is differences. Both sides also agree that the brain is an extremely powerful organ and if someone thinks that one thing will help and another thing will not, they have to receive whatever treatment they believe will help or else they will never recover.

Works Cited:

Lasser, Karen, et al. "Smoking and mental illness: a population-based prevalence study." Jama 284.20 (2000): 2606-2610.

Foucault, Michel, and Hubert Dreyfus. "Mental illness and psychology." (2008).

Szasz, Thomas. Myth of mental illness. Vol. 15. New York, 1961.

Jorm, A. F. "Mental health literacy: Public knowledge and beliefs about." British Journal of Psychiatry 177 (2000): 396-401.

Dobson, Velma, and Bruce D. Sales. "The science of infanticide and mental illness." Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 6.4 (2000): 1098.

Horwitz, Allan V. Creating mental illness. University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Cornwall, Michael. "I Don't Believe in Mental Illness, Do You? - Mad In America." Mad In America. N.p., 19 Mar. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2016. <http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/03/i-dont-believe-in-mental-illness-do-you/>.

An Aesthetical Analysis of Winter 1946

Andrew Wyeth was a regionalist painter who was born on July 12, 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania to N.C. Wyeth and his wife, Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. Wyeth was the last of 5 children and was home-schooled due to having a bad hip and frequent mysterious illnesses. This meant that his only teacher was his father, N.C Wyeth. N.C Wyeth was a famous illustrator and illustrated great children’s classics such as Treasure Island and The last of the Mohicans. He took a large interest in his son’s education and taught him to draw before he taught him how to read. Wyeth worked as an illustrator under his father's name until he was in his teens and held a high regard for his father and other artists. Wyeth continued on in anonymity creating illustrations under his father’s name, something he did not have a passion, until his twenties. He then began painting watercolors that he described as “caricatures of nature.” Sadly, in October of 1945 his father and nephew, Newell Convers Wyeth II, age 3, were killed in an a car accident where they were struck by a train (Meryman). This jarring incident is stated by Wyeth to be the main factor as to what made him into the artist he became. Andrew Wyeth created Winter 1946 in his usual regional and realist style as a way to honor his father after his passing and to further convey his feelings through the subject, the title choice, and the color scheme.

Figure 1: Becky King Study, Example of Wyeth's early works

Wyeth is commonly associated with a combination of two styles: Regionalism and Realism. Regionalism, also known as American Scene Painting, is an art movement that occurred from the 1920s through the 1950s, reaching its height in prominence in the 1930s in the United States. During the 1930s, regionalist artists documented small towns and rural landscapes; some did so as a way to return to a simpler time away from industrialization while others wanted to make a political statement and lent their art to radical causes. Regionalism focused on rural scenes and rejected city life and modern industrialism (Regionalism). The main focus of these painting were mid-western architecture and figures. Regionalism gave the viewer a heartwarming view of the simple life in the rural United States (Regionalism).

Realism is described as a detailed and unaltered portrayal of contemporary life. Realism became a prominent movement in the 1800s. It was a response to Classicism and Romanticism. While those styles showed the lush, wealthy lives of nobility, realism showed the hard and “dirty” lives of the working classes (Realism). While Wyeth was often described as a realist painter he did not like this classification. He is quoted in an interview with Richard Meryman from Life magazine as saying “A lot of people say I’ve brought realism back- they try to tie me up with Eakins and Winslow Homer. To my mind, they are mistaken.” He did not, however, refute his classification as a regionalist artist.

Figure 2: Winter 1946, Focus piece of paper

Winter 1946, on the surface, is a very straightforward painting. It features a boy running down a hill with a minimal background of a fence. The boy is casting a long shadow, suggesting that is evening and has his hand outstretched like he is reaching out for something. The viewer knows that the setting is winter due to there being snow on the ground and the boy being dressed in a heavy jacket, boots, and a hat. On a basic level, the boy appears to be running home for dinner or from playing. However, when the painting is looked at on a deeper level and with a little knowledge of Wyeth’s life, the painting takes on a whole new meaning.

Wyeth often painted places that were close to him. He enjoyed painting the neighboring countryside that surrounded him in Chadds Ford and also in his summer home in Cushing's, Maine. The setting of this painting is the hill where the family tragedy of the deaths of his father and young nephew occurred. In the Life magazine interview, Wyeth revealed that the railroad tracks where his father and nephew died are just on the other side of the hill the boy is running down.The boy running away from the death is a physical representation of Wyeth emotionally running from his father’s death. Wyeth in a interview said that he was sick with guilt over not painting his father when he was alive and in an attempt to prove that he was a real artist like his father was, he painted Winter 1946 as a type of homage to his father.

While all of Wyeth’s later works use a similar color scheme, the muted colors present in Winter 1946 help to further express Wyeth’s emotions towards this painting. Since winter is often portrayed as a “grey” time, the palate used allows the viewer to understand that the painting is set in winter even without knowing the title of the piece. The painting also gives a hazy feeling to the viewer almost like the painting is being viewed through a cold fog.

  Until the death of Wyeth’s father in 1945, he was an aimless artist with a lot of potential and very little to show for it. Through Wyeth’s aesthetical choices of the painting, he presented himself as a person and his true abilities as an artist. Winter 1946 was his first attempt at “real” art as opposed to his earlier works in watercolor and was a vehicle for Wyeth to fully express his emotions over his father and nephew’s deaths. His guilt and anxiety over his father’s passing turned him into the artist.

The Impressionist Eye

Near the end of the 1800s, a few artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro, were ready to depart from the customary, traditional confines of painting. These men are known as the founders of the art movement called “Impressionism”. The artists abandoned the highly detailed art of the day, and began creating "rougher" pieces, aimed to portray the beauty of the moment rather than the intricacy of people.The Impressionism movement provided a new lens by which artists explored the world–a lens that decreased the influence of their own eye within their works and allowed more space for the viewer’s eye to discern the optical impressions of beauty. Monet achieved this new optical vantage point by striving to capture a specific, fleeting moment of time in his piece “The Cliff at Étretat, Sunset”, training his focus on the passing light and movement at the expense of form and details.

Though Monet is viewed as one of the fathers of this art style, a few artists came before him who also explored this rougher style of painting. In the life of Monet, a notable forerunner was Eugene Boudin. Boudin produced a painting entitled “Personnages sur la plage de Trouville” in 1865, about a decade before the formal dawn of Impressionism. During this time, Monet was creating caricatures like the one pictured below.


Graphite caricature of Henri Cassinelli by Monet

It is recorded that Boudin told Monet, “Come on, Claude — your caricatures are fun, but it's not real art, ...I mean art; I mean painting, Claude, painting!” (Stamberg). Boudin recognized the potential Monet possessed, and he pushed him to fully explore that potential. It was because of Boudin that Monet traveled to the Normandy coast and began to paint in an Impressionistic manner.


“The Cliff at Étretat, Sunset” by Monet

Once Monet fully embraced the Impressionist style, he quickly amassed a large volume of works. One of his favorite places to work was off the Normandy coast in the little village of Étretat. It is estimated that Monet produced 22 works there. One of his works, “The Cliff at Étretat, Sunset”, is shown above. Monet depicts the scene with quick, irregular strokes, as if he were trying to catch a momentary picture that the light of the setting sun produced. Writer M. Southgate describes the features saying, “...the orange sun, the hint of mauve in the evening sky, the carefully placed blues and greens of the water, the solidly built cliff with its graceful and distinctive arch carved from thousands of years, the wind-swept sky hinting at the morrow while reflecting the day just ending”(Southgate). These features took form through certain techniques, such as loose paint handling, various types of brushstrokes, and a color-rich palette, as well as painting wet-on-wet. Painting wet-on-wet proved necessary if the painter wished to complete the piece in one sitting. There are five key components that Impressionist painters strove to include in their pieces: to excel in depicting momentary scenes of beauty, to complete the entirety of their piece in the open air, to use only pure colors, to use small, rough brushstrokes, and to employ the strong power of light to finalize their piece.

A unique discovery was made concerning “The Cliff at Étretat, Sunset” in 2012. A group of astrophysicists journeyed to France in hopes of establishing the exact time of the painting. The low setting sun made this painting unique and served as a useful tool in their analysis. After finding Monet's exact vantage point and digitally recreating the sky from the 1880s, the team was able to conclude that the painting was completed on February 5, 1883 at 4:53 pm. Monet excelled in portraying a sense of time and place.

Much like his painting pictured above, Monet strayed away from including any strong religious or cultural influences within his works. His focus centered around capturing the purity of the natural elements. Because of his works and those of fellow Impressionist painters, society’s view on art began to change. Their unwillingness to conform to traditional styles blazed a new trail that allowed artists to express themselves creatively in original, unadulterated simplicity. Poet Jules Laforgue stated, "The Impressionist eye...is the most advanced eye in human evolution, that which up to now has seized upon and rendered the most complicated nuances known" (Impressionism). Impressionism pieces appear simplistic, yet they convey far more than what initially meets the eye.

The irony surrounding the “Impressionistic Eye” lies in the late year of Monet’s life. Trouble began for Monet in 1908, when his view of distant objects became fuzzy. From there, his condition only worsened, and in 1912, a doctor diagnosed him with bilateral nuclear cataracts. Too afraid to undergo surgery, Monet suffered through the following years. His unique eye, so long acclaimed as one that provided a new perspective of the world, was now failing him. In 1918, 10 years after his vision problems began, he is quoted saying, "I no longer perceived colors with the same intensity, I no longer painted light with the same accuracy. Reds appeared muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the lower tones escaped me. As for forms, they always appeared clear” (Steele). By the year 1922, Monet’s sight had progressed to near blindness. He finally agreed to undergo surgery by the hand of Paris ophthalmologist Charles Coutela. The following years brought Monet complications, along with aphakic glasses he had to wear to see. It took him a while to adjust, but through it all, Monet kept painting. His death came in 1926 after almost 60 years spent painting. The famous remark of fellow painter Paul Cezanne describes Monet and his work beautifully, "He was only an eye, but what an eye!" (Impressionism).


“Le Chateau Noir” by Cezanne in comparison to “Banks of the Seine, Vetheuil” by Monet

The 19th century Impressionist movement provided a new lens through which artists viewed the world. Artists like Monet sought to challenge old conventions and shifts art's focus away from detailed paintings such as still-lifes to a style more focused on capturing the essence of light and fleeting moments in time. This often leads the artist's eye to neglect many details in paintings, yet they still convey powerful aspects in their art: light, movement, texture, time, transiency. This quote says it in a succinct manner: "In [Impressionism’s] purest form it painted solely what the eye saw." The loss of details lets the viewers use their eyes to complete the picture–it gives the paintings multiple meaning. This new viewpoint has since shaped the direction of modern art.



Works Cited

Hurwitz, Laurie S. "The Well-Planned Spontaneity of Claude Monet." American Artist           03 1996:56. ProQuest. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.

“Impressionism: Origins, Influences.” Encyclopedia Of Art History. visual-arts-                    cork.com, n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

Steele, Matthew, and J. Patrick O'Leary. "Monet's Cataract Surgery." The American              Surgeon 67.2 (2001): 196-8. ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

Southgate, M. “The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset.” The Journal of the American Medical                Association 288.19 (2002): 2370. Print.

Walton, Kimberley. “Contrasting the Work of Cézanne and Monet: Two Unique Paths             To Modernism.” Empty Easel. Empty Easel, n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016

Still Life: Expressing a Cultural Issue

North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC is home to many different cultural pieces of art; which include African, Jewish, Egyptian, and Italian art. It is also the first museum in the nation to purchase art with public funds (“Permanent Collection”). The museum holds many beautiful paintings and sculptures, however there was one piece by Beth Lipman that stood out to me. All of Lipman’s sculptures are made entirely of glass, with an exception of a wooden shelf or table. Her sculptures exhibit the still life culture, which is the arrangement of inanimate objects to represent a person or idea. She has exhibited her work as south at the Ringling Museum of Art in Florida, and as far north as the ICA/MECA in Maine,and even in other countries like the Gustavsbergs Konsthall in Sweden. Lipman’s art has also been purchased and kept in many museums including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Corning Museum of Glass in New York (“About”). The piece of hers that resides in the North Carolina Museum of Art is titled “Bride.” Although Lipman never states what the sculpture represents, I believe that the purpose was to represent a bride who is marrying an abusive husband. The tiered structure was to imitate an American wedding cake. The way that the top tier is neat and put together while the bottom tier is messy and crowded, scattered with wild animals, represents that the surface of a marriage may look nice but inside it is really chaos. It is interesting that she constructed such a beautiful sculpture to represent a horrifying situation, and i believe that it was to give the abused brides to-be and wives, that something beautiful is awaiting them once they free themselves from their shackles.



The use of glass is a symbol in itself. It represents purity and perfection. I also noted that a lot of couples receive china as wedding gifts that most likely sit inside a cabinet collecting dust, however it is lovely to look at and admire. Weddings are the same in a way. They are expensive, elaborate, and a beautiful representation, but they are over in about two hours and while the wedding might be perfect, the marriage could be a disaster.

I also believe that the black stand is of some significance. Visually, I believe that it provides contrast against the clear glass. Symbolically, I believe that the black represents the darkness in an abusive relationship, specifically marriage, and the glass represents the good parts of it. The stand serves as the core of the sculpture while the glass is on the outside of the sculpture. This shows that when you look on the surface of a marriage it seems perfect, but the core of the relationship and what goes on behind closed doors could be dark, dangerous, and broken.



The picture above is of a traditional wedding cake, that of which Lipman wanted to model her sculpture after. The top tier of “Bride” is neat and put together nicely; as you move down the tiers, the organization of the glass gets messier. This is representing that a wedding and marriage may look perfect and in order on the surface, but the relationship could be messy and complicated, in this case dangerous. The reason why Lipman adds tiny wild animals to the base of the structure is to have them represent the severity of the situation, and to emphasize the damage an abusive relationship can cause just like an untamed, wild animal. This is why she adds them at the messiest part of the sculpture.



This picture is so incredible.  It shows the most amazing message that Lipman was trying to show in her sculpture. The portrait on the left shows a beautiful couple ready to get married. The second you look at them you feel excited and happy for them, starting a life together. Once you look at the portrait on the right, you are in horror and disbelief. Then you look back at the picture on the right and think, “But they look so happy and she doesn’t look like she’s in pain or afraid.” This is what Lipman is attempting to show through “Bride.”

Domestic violence is a serious problem. It affects all kinds of people; rich, poor, black, white, female, and even male. Many domestic violence reports are excused or denied, which makes it much harder for the victim to come forward. Most of the time, the victims need encouragement from friends and family in order to come forward and report their abuser. The problem with domestic violence is victim blaming and the traumatization the victim has to go through in the reporting process, so many events go unreported. One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. In two out of three female homicides, the killer was the female’s family member or intimate partner, and sixty perecent of domestic violence occurs inside the home.

I love that Lipman turned a depressing message into a beautiful sculpture. This is a lesson to be learned. Even if someone is in an abusive marriage, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and this is true for anyone who is going through a hard time not just abuse. I am a prime example. I am currently going through a hard time in my life and there are times when I think that nothing will ever get better when times are tough, but they will, and they do.

Works Cited:

Thaneeya. "Still Life Paintings and Drawings Explained." Art Is Fun. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016. <http://www.art-is-fun.com/still-life-paintings/>.

Schneider, Norbert. Still life. Taschen, 2003.

Phelps, Delmus. "Still Life Symbolism, Why Skulls, Books, and Candles in Still Life Oil Painting." Easy-oil-painting-techniques.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2016. <http://www.easy-oil-painting-techniques.org/still-life-symbolism.html>.

"Permanent Collection." Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://ncartmuseum.org/art/overview/>.

"About." Beth Lipman. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.bethlipman.com/about/>.

"Domestic Violence and Abuse." : Signs of Abuse and Abusive Relationships. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/domestic-violence-and-abuse.htm>.

"Domestic Violence: Statistics & Facts." Safe Horizon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.safehorizon.org/page/domestic-violence-statistics--facts-52.html>.

A Closer Look at Winter 1946

Regionalism, also known as American Scene Painting, is an art movement that occurred from the 1920s through the 1950s, with its height in the 1930s in the United States. Regionalism focused on rural scenes and rejected city life and modern industrialism (Regionalism). The main focus of these painting were mid-western architecture and figures. It gave the viewer a heartwarming view of the simple life in the rural United States (Regionalism). One of the main figures of this movement was Andrew Wyeth. Another influential painter of this time was the painter of American Gothic, Grant Wood. The main focus of the following works is mostly farm area with a poor twist to them. They are all inferring that the subjects portrayed are alone in this wide open space, giving the viewer the feeling that every man or woman must fend for themselves or that only the strongest survive.


 



Winter 1946 was painted by Andrew Wyeth with tempera on a board. This is the painting I chose from the NCMA’s collection. This piece is significant due to being based off of Wyeth’s father’s death. His father reportedly died on the other side of the hill featured in this work. The main subject in the painting was a neighbour of Wyeth named Allan Lynch (Meryman). This painting has very muted colors and a sense of loneliness. This feeling grows deeper when the viewer is made aware of the significance behind the work.




Christina’s World is a painting of a neighbour by Wyeth. Christina Olson was a neighbour who suffered from polio and spent most of her time at home thus giving the title of “Christina's World” (Meryman). She most likely felt very trapped on her property. This painting shows her on the edges looking towards her house. This represents her testing her limits as much as she can. This piece is another regionalist work with muted colors and gives the feeling of loneliness as it must have been for Christina, not being able to venture off of her property. This piece was done in tempera and gesso.




Turkey Pond is another Wyeth painting that continues the lonely theme and uses muted colors. It was made using tempera on panel. It features a man walking away in the distance with no other object to be seen. This indicates that he is on a mission of his own. He appears to be walking away towards nothing of importance signifying a journey into loneliness.




Floodplain is another work by Wyeth. It, unlike his other works does not have a person as the main subject. It instead uses a pile of hay and what appears to be scraps from an old building as its focus. It still uses muted colors and gives a sense of emptiness. It was done in tempera on panel. Most of Wyeth’s works feature a person as the main focus, however this one does not which gives a tone of emptiness which still follows suite with his other works.

American Gothic is regionalist painting done by Grant Wood. It features two people who are farmers, solidifying the regionalist element, these people look very over worked and lonesome similar to Wyeth’s recurring themes in his works. The couple is dressed in nice material but their facial expression and props explain the whole painting. Their faces look tired and faded from long days of work. The pitchfork shows that they still work today despite their age, but it isn’t so much a form of work as it is a way of life for them because that is how they were raised. American Gothic was done in oil on beaver board which is in contrast with Wyeth's common usage of tempera.



References

Meryman, Richard. "Andrew Wyeth." Life 14 May 1965: 93-114. Google Books. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.

"Regionalism." Collections. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

A Closer Look at Brides

North Carolina Museum of Art is located in Raleigh, NC and is home to many different cultural pieces of art. Including African, Jewish, Egyptian, and Italian art. It is also the first museum in the nation to purchase art with public funds (“Permanent Collection”). The museum holds many beautiful paintings and sculptures, however there was one piece that stood out to me. It was one created by Beth Lipman, who is a sculptor who works with glass. Her sculptures exhibit the still life culture, which is the arrangement of inanimate objects to represent a person or idea. All of Lipman’s sculptures are made entirely of glass, with an exception of a wooden shelf or table. She has exhibited her work in the Ringling Museum of Art in Florida, ICA/MECA in Maine, RISD Museum in Rhode Island, the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wyoming, the Gustavsbergs Konsthall in Sweden, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Lipman’s art has been purchased by many museums including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, the Kemper Museum for Contemporary Art in Missouri, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Jewish Museum in New York, the Norton Museum of Art in Florida, and the Corning Museum of Glass in New York (“About”). The piece of hers that resides in the North Carolina Museum of Art is titled “Bride.” This paper will attempt to analyze the complex structure of “Bride” and try to make a connection and purpose of the piece.  The connection is between the sculpture and an American bride and the pressure to have a perfect wedding in order to have a perfect marriage.

https://www.tumblr.com/search/Beth-Lipman

The picture above is of Lipman’s sculpture, “Bride.” The structure is made of glass, paint, wood, and glue. The first thing I noticed was obviously all of the glass and that the shelf they were displayed on was tiered. I also noticed that the lower you go down the tiers, the more cluttered and messy the organization of the glass is. Also in that same pattern, the pieces of glass get bigger. There are also pieces of glass on the bottom tiers that are not only glasses, bowls, or plates, but tiny wild animals. I also noticed that the stand is black. I think this is primarily to provide contrast so that the glass can be seen easily.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_2761508_a-white-wedding-cake-with-three-levels-and-redroses.html

This is a picture of a traditional wedding cake. As you can see the cake is tiered just like the sculpture, which shows connection to its name, “Bride.” It is said that the wedding cake is often the centerpiece of the venue of the wedding. Many brides are judged for every aspect of their wedding, the main ones being the dress and the cake. I believe that Lipman made her structure so large because the wedding cake for a bride is one of the most crucial part of her big day. In fact there are many traditions associated with a wedding cake. For instance, they are traditionally white, symbolizing purity, which matches with the “Bride” structure. The glass is clear and colorless symbolizing perfection or purity.


https://www.pinterest.com/pin/90072061273106415/

This is a picture of a traditional, American bride. A white dress, a big bouquet of flowers, and a white veil. So much emphasis has been put on these traditions that very few stray from them. This only adds pressure on the bride as she plans her wedding. She believes that everything must be perfect or her marriage will be a disaster. This contributes to “Bride” because if you notice, the top tier is neat and simple, while the bottom is messy and crowded. I believe that Lipman is trying to show us that the surface of things may look nice but the foundation may be in shambles. So the top tier of the sculpture represents a perfect wedding, while the bottom tier represents a messy and unloving relationship between the bride and groom. It is American culture that has put this curse on brides. The quality of a bride a groom’s relationship should no longer be judged on their wedding, but their love for eachother.




https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/post-impressionism/a/czanne-the-basket-of-apples

This is a still life oil painting by Paul Cezanne. He was a famous still life artists and tended to include food on a table in his paintings. The question that surrounds this painting is, “Will the apples roll of the table?” This is an example of how these inanimate objects can produce feelings of thoughts, ideas, and people in still life art. Like Cezanne’s painting, “The Basket of Apples”, Lipman’s “Bride” is a still life work that causes people to think about questions or ideas about it and wonder who or what is represents.


http://indulgy.com/kenn-.)/paper--sculpture

This is a piece done by Tahiti Pehrson. Like Lipman’s sculpture, this too is constructed in tiers. I also find Pehrson and Lipman very much alike because Lipman works with glass while Pehrson works with paper. I find it very interesting that they both chose to do a tiered structure. This sculpture also is more chaotic at the bottom and more neat at the top just like “Bride.” This is somewhat a still life sculpture but not entirely, since is it made out of paper and inanimate objects are cut out of them.


Works Cited:

"Permanent Collection." Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016. <http://ncartmuseum.org/art/overview/>.

"About." Beth Lipman. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016. <http://www.bethlipman.com/about/>.

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Schapiro, Meyer. "Czanne, Paul." WebMuseum: : Still Life with Basket of Apples. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016. <https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/sl/basket-apples/>.

Analysis of Visual Contexts

Towards the end of the 1800s, the socially-correct art grounded in realism and perfection began to slowly be questioned by more avant-garde artists. A few artists of the time, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro, were ready for a departure from the customary still-lifes of the day. Instead, they choose to focus on evoking feelings through their works by using color and light. These men are known as the founders of the art movement coined Impressionism. This artistic style employs rough, quick brush strokes to achieve the goal of light and movement. Most often, these paintings are completed in the open air and many details are often forgotten, or perhaps overlooked, in order to capture the exactness of the moment of time. Impressionism paved the way for the avant-garde art forms that followed it, such as abstract and cubism. One of the founders of the Impressionism movement, Claude Monet, was a painter born in Paris, France. The following art pieces include four of his original works and one influencing work of a fellow painter, Eugene Boudin.




“The Cliff, Étretat, Sunset” by Claude Monet, 1882

Étretat is a small fishing village off of the Normandy coast of France and a popular spot among Impressionistic painters. Monet completed a series of works here, focusing on the unique rock structures protruding out from the coast. It is estimated that Monet produced 22 works from the landscape at Etretat. Monet’s piece speaks directly to the heart of impressionist painting. The brush strokes are rough, painted in quickly to capture the fleeting light. The shadows are created with colors, not just black. The water evokes feelings of movement and depth, along with elements of reflection. A unique discovery about this piece was made in 2012. A group of astrophysicists journeyed to France in hopes of establishing the exact time of Monet's painting. The low setting sun made this painting unique and served as a useful tool in their analysis. After finding Monet's exact vantage point and by digitally recreating the sky from the 1880s, the team was able to conclude that the painting was completed on February 5 at 4:53 pm.





“Personnages sur la plage de Trouville” by Eugene Boudin, 1865

Monet’s friend and fellow artist Eugene Boudin painted “Personnages sur la plage de Trouville” in 1865, about a decade before the formal dawn of Impressionism. He was one of the first artists to depict patrons relaxing at the beach, for around this time, fainting was a common ailment in Europe and many people were being sent to the coast to relax. Boudin recommended Monet take up Impressionism painting, especially paintings of nature and the coast. Monet was at the time a struggling artist fighting to gain acceptance within The Academy. It was because of Boudin that Monet traveled to the Normandy coast and began to paint in the Impressionistic manner. Boudin’s promptings succeeded in producing one of the most revered Impressionistic painters within the art community.





Graphite caricature of Henri Cassinelli by Claude Monet, 1858

Monet spent time in London making a name for himself by drawing charcoal caricatures. His friend and fellow artist, Eugene Boudin, felt he could produce so much more. It is recorded that Boudin said, “Come on, Claude — your caricatures are fun, but it's not real art,' ...'I mean art; I mean painting, Claude, painting!” (Stamberg). Boudin was right–Monet did have more to give, especially in the realm of painting. Once Monet fully committed to creating Impressionist work (after a short stint spent trying to create still-lifes), he quickly amassed hundreds of paintings, many of which were not accepted during his lifetime, but came to be valued years later.





“Women in the Garden” by Claude Monet, 1866

Monet was just a young painter at the age of 27 when he completed “Women in the Garden”. This piece includes four women, that of which his wife posed as a muse for all. Although very much a common-day still-life, a story line is missing from this painting. The art community was not impressed with Monet’s work and rejected it. This rejection, due to the lack of a story line and poorly executed academic art techniques, is speculated to be a reason why Monet took the opportunity to explore a new, unique type of painting. Monet had exhausted himself trying to conform to the stylistic conventions of the day. He was now ready to heed Boudin’s advice and venture out into the world of Impressionism.





“Impressionism, Sunrise” by Claude Monet, 1872

The fundamentals of impressionist art may have been established before the creation of “Impressionism, Sunrise”, but a name was not. This piece is where the name of this art form originated. This was one of the first pieces Monet completed and it was widely debated among the art community. Critics analyzed the short, crude brushstrokes and the bright, unblended colors. Many failed to appreciate this style of painting until years later. Modern art scholar Margaret Samu says, “Indeed, its life [impressionism] seems as fleeting as the light effects it sought to capture. Even so, Impressionism was a movement of enduring consequence, as its embrace of modernity made it the springboard for later avant-garde art in Europe.



Works Cited

Burks, Robin . “Physicist Figures out Exact Date and Time of Monet Painting.” Tech           Times . N.p., 6 Sept. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.                

        http://www.techtimes.com/articles/14953/20140906/physicist-places-exact-           date-and-time-on-monet-painting.htm


“Permanent Collection .” North Carolina Museum of Art . NCMA, n.d. Web. 29 Mar.         2016. http://ncartmuseum.org/art/detail/the_cliff_tretat_sunset



Stamberg, Susan . “Eugene Boudin: The Man Who Inspired Monet.” npr. npr, 1 July           2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2016. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?               storyId=128174560


“Women in the Garden (1866-7).” Encyclopedia of Art Education . N.p., n.d. Web.            29 Mar. 2016. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/paintings-analysis/women-in-          the-garden.htm