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!
Harbour Scene with Rising Sun
Artist: Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) (French, Chamagne 1604/5?–1682 Rome)
Date: 1634
Medium: Etching; fifth state of eight (Mannocci)
Dimensions: sheet: 5 9/16 x 8 1/4 in. (14.1 x 21 cm) plate: 5 1/8 x 7 13/16 in. (13 x 19.8 cm)
Classification: Prints
Is this a dream? I see a gigantic imposing building with columns on the left, right next to the waters of some kind of harbor, and all sorts of shadowy men working on small boats in the foreground and doing something with poles. In the background are bigger ships, and it seems everything fades into a bright white light in the center of the picture, perhaps the rising sun.
I see a dark curvature in this picture that circles most of the way around the sun, which appears to be rising blindingly in the center. The dark curve starts on the left with the tree that’s next to the impressive building with columns. It continues down on the loading dock in the front foreground, especially with that curving boat. It continues up the right side of the picture with that boom (?) gaff (?) leaning up and leftwards on the mast of the boat on the right. As many of the humans are between the viewer and the sun, they’re mostly black shadows.
Nice composition. And a bit surreal.
I think this is a drawing from the future, when global warming has moved the ocean into the streets of coastal cities, and the world governments insist that we use wind power for boats and do many other environmental things to bring the earth’s temperatures back down. In addition, the earth is not only revolving around the sun, but the sun’s gravitational pull is bringing the earth closer and closer to the sun, and one day we shall all burn up. THe sun is that powerful.
Question. Is this going to be a scorching hot day? I feel I should put on my sunglasses. And for some reason I feel the water here must be very polluted.