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!
Summer Morning
Artist: David Lucas (British, Northamptonshire 1802–1881 London)
Artist: After John Constable (British, East Bergholt 1776–1837 Hampstead)
Date: ca. 1830
Medium: Mezzotint; between states a and b, proof before letters
In 1827, Constable began work on the project that would occupy his attention until his death seven years later: the publication of a series of prints based on his paintings that would stand as a summary of his achievements. The painter collaborated closely with the engraver David Lucas to create prints that would convey Constable’s didactic intention—to illustrate the “chiaroscuro of nature.” The medium of mezzotint, in which the design is developed from dark to light using a wide range of velvety tones, was eminently suited to the project. Here, the bright sun of a summer morning illuminates a richly textured landscape, striated in light and shade.
I can make out a cow lying down on this field, but I can’t distinquish very well the person who is standing. When I squint my eyes I see that the field is a lighter, brighter color than the open sky above. Both the land and they sky have light parts, dark parts.
I think I see a house on the right overshadowed by trees and with a skylight in the roof. I know that sounds strange. It couldn’t be a solar panel, could it?
I think the man on the hill has his back to us, is looking off into the distance, and has a shotgun aimed at something. This is a confusing piece of art. Why did you include it?
Yes that’s a solar panel on the roof of the house but it’s a waste of money because the house is mostly in the shade and the sun is on the other side of the roof. The man with the gun is hunting for partridges. The cow is dreaming hazily about fresh hay. It’s an ordinary day.
It’s a very interesting picture with a sweep of white sky above and a sweep of white field below, all contained within a dark, black border of dark clouds, dark bushes, dark trees. The sun is out of sight but off to the right of the picture, which is odd in this series.
I don’t get this at all. I don’t get what the dark objects are in the lower left corner. I don’t get if that is really a man standing and pointing a gun or something else. Sorry! Better luck next time.