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!
Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
Artist: Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch, Dordrecht 1620–1691 Dordrecht)
Date: ca. 1650
Medium: Oil on wood
Dimensions: 18 x 22 7/8 in. (45.7 x 58.1 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Description
Cuyp never went to Italy, but he emulated Dutch Italianate painters who had been there, above all Jan Both (ca. 1615/18–1652). Here the Holy Family’s route to Egypt seems to lead from Rhineland rocks and trees to an idyllic coast near Genoa.
Back when the world was mostly green. No plastic bags caught in the trees. No plastic straws littering the road. No texting while riding a mule.
Fun haiku for beautiful artwork! But speaking of beautiful artwork, that picture of Kitties Blue is fabulous! 😻
The three people in the lower left corner are walking away from civilization and the light. The other people are sitting or standing by the cows. The cows are standing on a footbridge over a stream. THe clouds are rather vertical which seems strange to me. THis picture has a lot of green in it.
Sun off screen and on the left. (This goes without saying.) The man leading the donkey with the woman and child riding on it is leading them into the darkness. The woman sitting towards the center is facing the sun and is aglow with sunshine. In general, the picture can be divided in to two triangular sections, divided by a diagonal line going from the lower left corner to the upper right. One triangle, on the top left, is predominantly light. The other triangle is dark green.