Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Futami-ga-ura Rocks at Ise, Land of Dawn
Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786–1865)
Date: ca. 1835
Medium: Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper
this certainly says “good morning” ! what bright sunshiney rays it has !! i see four sail boats with white sails sailing toward the rising sun, and flocks of black birds in the sky ! are they flying toward the sun or away from it ? it’s either one or the other. they are not flying laterally across the picture ! is this sun rise or sun set ? i say SUN RISE !!! GOOD MORNING !!!
A case of the sun not off screen but center screen, although it is just below the horizon. It’s a spectacular picture, with the startling sun’s rays and the two big rock outcroppings with the rope hanging between them. But what is really strange is the size of the humans. They’re minuscule! Mostly they are in the shadow of the rock towers. And at the very top of the tower on the left you have Torii gates (is that how you spell it) and I can’t imagine how these small humans or their buddies got up there to install them. Furthermore the rope that stretches between the two rocks is as thick as a human body. How did that work? IT’s all like a fantasy.
The rope on the left rock seems securely tied, but on the right rock it’s just loosely coiled. And, what is the significance of the hanging knotted tassels? I count seven of them.
Is the choice of this painting intended to gear everyone up for the next World Parkinson Congress in Kyoto, Japan ?????