Dorothea Lange, an artist devoted to the migrants

Migrant Mother 1936 by Dorothea Lange  4x5" Library of Congress, Washington D.C

In this picture in black and white, we see four characters, a mother with her two children and one infant in her lap. What attracts at first our look is the mother's expression. She looks like she is lost in her thoughts, worried, preoccupied about something. Indeed, her eyes have an anxious look, they do not look like they are fixed anywhere in particular but more somewhere that us viewers cannot see but only imagine, the mother's mind. The multiple wrinkles on her face witness her worries, her lassitude too. In fact, she does not seem to be really old but her aspect let us believe that she has known hard times and that her life experience make her older than she is in reality. By her side, hiding their faces in her neck and crowling on her are two children, most likely hers. Both of them look like they could be resting or trying to be the closest they can to their mothers because they are scared.Their bodies's postions also express their tiredness. All the characters wear clothes which are worn out, dirty. One of the children's hand is really dirty and also the baby's face seems to be dusty, draker at some points as if tiny particles covered it, both of them standing out darker in the picture than most of the personnages' apparent skin. These elements tell us that their living conditions are probably mediocre. Also, we know that they are immigrants but the idea of them having traveled for a long time is  confirmed by their global aspect: exhaustion, filthiness.

Dorothea Lange used to work for the Farmer Security Administration, documenting the impact of federal programs in improving rural conditions.It is while travelling to realize her work that she falls upon this woman and her children. Touched by her, she will take a few different shots of her and her family. Once back in San Francisco where she lived, she alerted a newspaper providing it with a couple of her shots. As a result, the government rushed to send food into the migrants' camp. Indeed, Dorothea Lange was not initially an artist and had not learnt to work in an art school but the impact of her work was beyond anything that anyone could have expected. Actually, I believe that when she spontaneously took these pictures she was hoping to help this people by claiming their needs through her photography. Indeed, the power of the pictures, the emotions they carry had an incredible effect on the population and the governement at that time. And still today, they remind us of what happened, faithly transmitting the history of these people.

You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you. And you just hope you have enough time to get it organized in af raction of a second on that tiny piece of sensitive film. Sometimes you have an inner sense that you have encompassed the thing generally. You know then that you are not taking anything away from anyone, their privacy, their dignity, their wholenes

Title: Instructional Resources: Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange
Author(s): Dorothea Lange; Carole Henry
Source: Art Education, Vol. 48, No. 3, The Broader Context (May, 1995), pp. 25-28+37-40

Week 3: Raphael and the catholic religion

Disputation of the Holy Sacrament 1509-1510 by Raphael 200 × 300 Vatican Museums

On this painting, there are three parts. On the top above all the characters are angels gathered around the God Father, who seems to be carrying a depitction of earth. Underneath him is then the Christ, sitting in front of what looks like to be a representation of the golden sun. The Virgin and Saint John the Baptist are close around him, The Virgin looking at him in a motherlike way, and Saint John pointing at him. Eventually, at the center, rests the Holy Spirit. On each side of this assembly, the Most Holy Trinity, is the Triumphant Church which is composed of prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament consorting apostles and martyrs, seated in an arc above the clouds. Eventually, underneath these Holy figures, remains the Militant Church. And so, Raphael uses bright colors for his composition. However he reserves the gold one for the angelic pieces. Nevertheless, this art work is a remarkably detailed: Looking carefully, the clouds are composed of countless angels. Moreover, the peculiar features assist us in getting the expression and the gesture of the personnages, which themselves incite us to believe that an argument is going on between the different actors of the scene, especially the ones present on the ground.

In his work, Raphael seems to separate intentionally the sacred personnages in his painting from their preachers. Indeed, the clouds create a barrier between both of those world, the one in the sky, Heaven, and the one on earth. As a matter of fact, Raphael was a fervent catholic and in throughout his entire life he tried to honor his religion throughout his work and to defend it as the golden one. The barrier he creates here could be to place the Saints above the people. Furthermore, the gold stands for the wealth, as intellectual as material, of the delegates of the Catholic religion. Therefore, through his art, he made himself the spokeman of the Catholic religion and of its magnitude.

Today, millions of people have visited the Vatican Museums and, through the paintings of Raphael, admired the eminence of the Catholic religion. Indeed, Raphael completed his purpose by promoting the grandeur of his religion views with his work.

Week 2: Ernő Weisz, 23-Year-Old Factory Worker, by Kata Kalman

This is the portrait of Erno Weisz,23 year-old factor worker, taken by Kata Kalman in Budapest in 1932. It is exposed in the National Art Gallery in Washington,D.C.
(size:9 1/2 x 6 15/16 inches)

This picture in black and white represents the portait of a tired man. His face as a whole looks young but his wrinkles and the look in his eyes make him look older, as if he had been through a lot already. The use only of black and white here helps the eyes catching the viewer attention. The white in this man's eyes get out in the photography and attracts us to view the eyes with more details than any other part of his face. Indeed, it seems like they have a story to tell us, a message to pass on to their viewers.

After World War I, life gets harder in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. Here, the artist denounces through her art work the difficult working conditions from which suffer adults and children in Budapest. Indeed, the lower classes do all the "dirty" and demanding work, put up with many hours a day and are paid a miserable salary. In fact, the face of this young man itself is enough to depict the hardness of his labor: his wrinkles and his tired eyes speek for themselves. He looks like someone who is not expecting much more of life, do not have much expectations because he learnt to let his ambitions behind in order most likely to try guaranteing the most decent life conditions for his family.

Kata Kalman's goal was indeed to show to the richer classes what was the daily life of their poorer neighbors: 
"Her photographs of workers, Gypsy girls and the children of the poor, introduced the middle class audience to a segment of society who lived within their apartments as servants but about whom they knew little. The physical distance was hardly noticeable but socially they lived worlds apart." (http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artist,show,1,48,0,0,0,0,0,0,kata_kalman.html)
Indeed, she realized her goals to open up the world to the dramatic case of the working conditions in which her people, in her country, suffered from and which were, until that time, completely ignored. Maybe, she was also hoping for some understanding from the richer Hungrian which could have tried helping those in need and changing the situation.

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=129981&image=27291&c=ggmodphoto

Week 1: Art in the Atrium by Kerry James Marshall

Monticello and Mount Vernon,the homes of American presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, were both painted by Kerry James Marshall in 2009. They are currently exposed in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Kerry James Marshall plays with colors and forms: looking carefully at the landscapes, we can find hidden heads and figures of slaves, suggested in the shadows , in the trees and in the water behind Mount Vernon.Indeed, Kerry Marshall tried using various colors for his paintings but at the same time, when drawing the hidden slaves, tried using the same colors as the background, to actually hide them. So in the trees for example, he uses a darker green but still a green to paint his slaves. Also, in both art works you can see dots that once connected, representing more slaves who worked on these plantations.
 In fact, Kerry James Marshall, an African American artist, has fully realized how people of colors have been left out of pictures during the life times of Jefferson and Washington. Acknowledging this, he studied history and its representation in works of art, to come up with this "visual game of seeking and finding the hidden meaning of each picture".  Indeed, he presents here two new paintings as puzzles, his purpose being to let the viewers connect the dots and discover for themselves what message he delivers throughout his work: slaves were part of the life of these two presidents, and throughout them, important to everyone. They cannot be forgotten.
Seeing these two paintings, i believe that this art work influence people in a way that, everyone who actually sees this work, realize how slaves were part of the American history. Indeed, they often are left out but they were here doing most of the work that others wouldn't do.They took part in building this country and making it what it is today. And Kerry James Marshall, throughout his pictures, help us remembering it and acknowledging too that, by hiding them in his pictures, that they actually were hidden from all art work for a long time.




http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/388
www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/marshall