Reflective

The time spent in school, in classes, and then in English class all contributed to a progressive learning experience that allowed me to learn more, understand more, and let me as an individual have a broader view on things. In class, throughout the year, we covered popular themes including, but not limited to, man, sex, woman, and mother. Class discussions, though sometimes not all as exciting as I would want it to be, expanded knowledge on how other people may view subject matters in different perspectives with extreme overlapping insight, such as the contradicting view of whether Hamlet of Hamlet is insane or not.
In these classes, the people in the class were able to share new views, new thoughts, and more ideas that added on to each other’s experiences. Though, not to compliment you Mr. Gallagher, but even the acting of you and others in the class let me and possibly many others in the class to look at how a passage in a book or a scene in a play is ‘supposed’ to look like. Acting in class was oddly both entertaining and educational surprisingly enough. Usually reading and saying the words of plays, such as Hamlet, the words just didn’t make sense to me, but performing them out loud allowed me to understand much more clearly and I’ll be applying this sort of learning in the future.
The option for getting to work online at www.blogspot.com allowed for a more versatile and flexible schedule for students. In addition, doing homework online is similar to having a study session with classmates in the school library or having a discussion in class. It allowed one person to post up a blog, and then anyone else who cared to look could either respond to that post or just simply look at it in order to refer to something for an example, though doing homework online proved a bit more difficult to those who could not access a computer as easily. Doing homework online not only proved advantageous, but was also a learning experience in itself. From it, I acquired more skills that allowed me to research online and use time more effectively to complete online assignments in order to move on to the next. It was sort of stressing and entertaining at the same time since doing homework at home, you could talk with friends online and send each other websites or information that would be useful.
The more insightful subject that we went over this year that was stressed though many books and plays contained this theme, or this theme could be applied, in the context. Awkward at most times, subjects awkward like these quickly turned into a usual event everyday and was talked about with all seriousness with a hint of comedy, usually comedy provided by Mr. Gallagher, Ronald, or Andrew in many cases. The class was easy to learn in because for me, it was entertaining for most of the time. This is type of learning by learning through the wanting of learning let me perform sometimes at maximum potential with all enthusiasm. Enthusiasm showed such as the assignment where the class had to create a song, poem, or story by themselves and then explain what was trying to be symbolized in there own workings. That assignment was my favorite to do and present on my blog.
The assignments through the year weren’t all too hard. Many included the assignment of writing about symbols and themes. Many of my themes revolved around the subjects of blindness, glasses, light, darkness, and eyes. Many of these papers allowed me to relate the subjects to myself and allowed me to in a way write about myself. With bad eyesight myself, writing about the condition of being blind or not being able to see was almost second nature. Overall, the assignments through the year each provided new views on how we as students and people of society should take a look at how we live as individuals and how we should, or could, react to certain situations.

Julie Mehretu's Black Ground <----LINK

Julie Mehretu’s work is one of a kind. Upon looking at her work a passerby may think it looks like a lot of random chicken scratch, but these many crisscrossing lines and triangles stemming from these lines both hold meaning and value to an attracted viewer. Painted on a grey to black toned background, white “strings” are painted in every direction. An endless amount of triangles are made just from the crisscrossing of strings. The colors that make up the triangles for the most part are solid red, blue, white, and transparent sea foam green. These triangles look very disorganized, yet looking at the painting it looks as if there is center to this painting. The geometric unity of this portrait is unique and perfect. Looking closer to the painting, one would realize that not all the shapes are triangles. There are some circles, rectangles, and even semi circles that are completely random, or so we think.

Ideas
The hundreds of “strings” that appear in this painting give an expression that each and every line is connected to a triangle, as if it was a kite. This kite symbolization brings an onlooker to his or her past childhood experiences with kites and running with kites. An onlooker would become attracted to this painting because the painting gives the onlooker a sense of youth and happiness only a child could experience through the pointless running around in circles to keep a kite up. This remembrance of the past gives hint to a meaning of the meaning crisscrossing strings of the painting. There is a television show called “Heroes” where a Japanese dude traces the strings of time back to an event that could change history. This makes me think that all these strings in the painting are like the strings of time, a minute, a day, and a year. Each triangle in this painting represents events happened or happening. The size of the triangles can represent the magnitude of the events, or they can represent a more present event that has happened.

Jay DeFeo's Makara <---- LINK

Jay DeFeo’s Makara depicts a doglike body with what seems to be like a ball in its paws at a vertical degree position. It’s as if the painting was painted was painted with the dog just lying down, and then as he finished, he turned the painting clockwise ninety degrees. Looking towards the end of the dog, or animal, it has no hind legs and the whole hind ends in a spiral. The color is dull gray, not really fitting for an emotionally unstable picture. Yet, this animal, in a human point of view looks as if it has a smile on. On the body of this animal there is what looks like scales of a fish. Looking closer at the front legs they are not legs at all but look like flippers. The ball within the paws actually look like a shell in this case. The neck of this fish like painting looks like it has gills. The long nose snout ends curving upwards. Defeo makes it seem as if there are two wavy lines coming out of the mouth maybe suggesting a tongue, or maybe air.

Ideas
Looking at this picture I notice that it first looks like a fossilized dog. The swirl that the tail makes reminds me of the intricate swirl of a shellfish. The shell, or ball, in the flippers of the dog gives a sense of eternity because if one were to trace the edge of a circle, it’d never end. The swirl that the tail makes, along with the dull color, points towards this idea of antique time. This portrait sitting still in the moment in the dull color of grey or blue gives an onlooker a sense of old. The wavy streaks out of the dogs mouth looks like it lost air in the process of its own fossilization. DeFeo painted this picture to make it look like it has existed since the beginning of time, and to exist forever till the end of time.

Chuck Close's Self Portrait <--- Link

With a faraway point of view, I see a portrait, or picture, of a man. A normal man with a beard and glasses. Coming closer and closer to the portrait, the picture seems a bit distorted and a more glassy. A passerby would come to realize that this portrait is made of a crazy amount of tiny squares. Each square is unlike its neighbor in tone, but alike in color. Each square is painted with both a light and dark tone color to express a certain blur and glow to the painting. The background is filled with the color blue, green, orange, and seemingly not a hint of black in site for the background. The shadows of Chuck Close’s right side of the face are very noticeable compared to his left side of the face. Centering on more details, Close’s eyes shine a deep light sea blue giving any onlooker an eerie stare. His lips and beard aren’t really filled in with high or defining colors that would define it’s exact shape or look.

Ideas
Each and every square is so tiny and in a way, meaningless as many tiny units, but putting all those tiny little units together you get one defining shape and portrait of Chuck Close. This makes me feel like a small little man. Literally. We all as humans are merely made up of atoms that are in turn made up of protons and electrons that are made up of the energies that are essentially the tiny grains of sands that are the building blocks that make life. We are like the tiny squares and the world, or the universe, is the canvas we try to fill. Together, mankind may bring drastic change to the world. Close’s eyes are colored with a light sea blue color giving his eyes a mystical feeling. The eyes draw us as viewers in. The eyes are the key to this portraits attraction, the style compliments the eyes and it’s unusual depth.

Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1 (Alexander Fodor)

In Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet’s soliloquy portrays Hamlet realizing there is no reason in staying alive, and that there is actually more burden in the process of living than the eternal dreamlike state that death presents to its beholder. Among the three videos, Alexander Fodor’s interpretation of Hamlet is the best played. Fodor portrays Hamlet’s soliloquy with a shocked expression that his wide-open still eyes show. Imagery of King Hamlet’s death, the color and brightness of the setting, and the still paralyzed looking face of Fodor all play part in Hamlet’s enlightenment inspire the true meaning behind Hamlet’s soliloquy.

The film’s first setting with people shown is the setting of King Hamlet’s death and funeral. His body lays on a table all covered by a white blanket up to his chest. The setting consists of a serene still aqua blue light that overlay the actors while all settled on a white background. As Hamlet says “Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them,” (line 58) the scene changes from the face of Hamlet to the dull sky-blue colored faces of the attendees of King Hamlet’s funeral. The bright light of the background shines upon the cast as though in a dream. Hamlet contemplates that death is a state of an eternal dream that is rewarded after humans have gone through “this mortal coil” (line 66), or life’s burden. Life has many tragedies that people have to live through. For Hamlet, the loss of his father, the rejection of Hamlet’s love from Ophelia, and the seeming betrayal from all dear to him are his life’s cheerful hindrances. The cast at King Hamlet’s funeral show no lively emotion, as if they lived through life’s burdens of a “thousand natural shocks//That flesh is heir to ;”( line 61).

Death, a dream, and the continuation of life are things that have no end. Life is a long recording of one’s own life. King Hamlet’s life was cut short at the moment of his death, similar to how a tape runs out of In fact, the first image actually seen in this film is a tape recorder. The circular shapes of the tape recorder remind the reader of the never ending cycle of death, and also the eternal dream offered by death, freeing the soul from the body and also freeing the person from “calamity of so long life” (line 82). To Hamlet, life is the process of suffering through the “whips and scorns of time” (line 69). He sees no beauty that life has to offer because all physical treasures disappear from possession at the time of death.

Hamlet’s eyes are focused on and are highly noticed as he stares straight ahead as if mesmerized by his own enlightened idea of a meaningless life of suffering that leads to the eternal dream state from an ever so sweet demise. The camera focuses in on Hamlet’s eyes as he speaks about the “dread of something after death, //The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn//No traveler returns, puzzles the will,” (lines 77-79). Death is not a mystery to anyone, but what is after death is what no one can ever answer. The dark shiny depths of Hamlet’s circular eyes represent the infinite mystery of the afterlife. Hamlet’s face shows the emotion of shock. Many fear the mystery after death because the after life is an uncharted territory that “No traveler returns” (line 79) from. This fear “puzzles the will” (line 79) and makes many mortals afraid of death.

The death of King Hamlet closely relates the idea that death is the link between an everlasting afterlife that is also an everlasting dreamland. Death is the solution and the resolution to the sufferings experienced through life. Though, when life ends for the dear dead King Hamlet, the new ‘recording’ of an eternal sleep known as death starts. The eyes of Hamlet represent the fears humanity has against death and its infinite unknowns. The circular shape of eyes and the tape on the tape recorder symbolize the never ending cycle that is death. Death is feared because it’s forever, something not understood by human.

explication of a Humament

Vision, mystery, and emotion are created uniquely through the moody colors and geometric shapes seen afar and up close. Color abstractly sets up a certain feeling and emotion that attracts the human eye closer. Love is held captive. A circle is forever. The emotions of love and compassion are forever captured and lost through Tom Phillip’s beautiful Humument.

At first glance, the first thing possibly noticed is the large deep sea blue spherical object with a blood colored blot. The dark blue gives off a feeling of loneliness because of the dimmed aquatic shade that gives a nostalgic remembrance of the vast empty ocean. This moody color encompasses any exuberant emotion that the brighter lower background shade attempts to release. The lower lighter shade of sky blue highly contrasts the dark ocean blue as the ocean blue gives a feeling of loneliness while the sky blue symbolizes a brighter mood of freedom and prosperity.

The stitches of darkness surrounding the sphere lets the viewer focus in on the events within the sphere. The chilling colors of the dim icy blue contrasts the fiery red colored blot. The dark red color within the sphere symbolizes the love or compassion once had by “Julie” before she slowly “grew cold”. This rose red compassionate color is surrounded by the feelings of loneliness and depression expressed from the surrounding darkness. A sphere has no breaks in its lines and trying to chase a circles end is never-ending. As with love, or heartbreak, the feeling of love is infinite and has no boundaries that anything could be compared to. A circle has no break or cranny that shows escape to anything that it encircles. The rose red blot is completely surrounded by darks strokes that form a circle. This darkness conceals and almost swallows the color red, symbolizing love. Love is forever captured and preserved in the encompassing darkness.

In a broad perspective, many things are circular and round. Describing the darkness in and surrounding the sphere in the painting brings to mind the fluorescent moon. The moon is bright and full of light, yet it is engulfed by the clouding night sky. The Greeks connected the brightness of the moon to the purity of a woman with a single goddess. Diana is the Greek goddess of chastity, and the moon. The moon looks to be a solid color as does the sphere in the portrait if not for the dirty white and red spots within the sphere. The white and red represent impurities in the sphere that prevent the sphere from being a pure solid blue. Impurities in the sphere link back to Diana, goddess of chastity and moon. The intrusion of colors in the painting’s sphere connects to a tainted moon and in hand represents an impure chastity. The symbolization that a circle is forever ongoing in its own cycle gives birth to the idea that once chastity is violated or has become impure, chastity remains impure.

Chastity can be broken by the everlasting ties of marriage. In marriage, rings are exchanged between two people who promise to forever love each other. Like the sphere, rings are another symbol of everlasting love and prosperity. The circle of a ring goes on forever like the wanted prosperity of marriage. Once married, those in marriage can be seen as very happy people, or people that are tied down by the circular golden ornament. This brings to light a truth of a ring. It is a form of confinement. The circle is a prison of it’s own Of course, human society knows that marriage is a sacred event, but for some couples love is not easily maintainable. Though marriage is a rather binding agreement between partners, the ties of marriage have been broken before. There is a light white line that creates a rift in the Humument. A rift in this document can symbolize the separation of marriage, or perhaps the For love’s sake, and for the sake of marriage, the rose red color may look and act as a flower, a flower with obstacles to overcome, the white blots, and growing stronger from the insecurities of not knowing what is to come in marriage.

The white rift that goes diagonally through “English poets” showing the rift in art and poetry Tom Phillip helps create. “English poets treated Nature” can represent the commitment artists and poets do towards their work. “Nature” is both the artists’ field of work, their skills, and the art produced by the artists themselves.

Art itself is a never-ending flow of ideas and creativity. Though, like the colors from top to bottom, if unpracticed or untouched, the culture of art can slowly fade away. Sticking the first and the last phrases together creates “English poets grew cold.” They grew cold because some art, like many other things, doesn’t last as long as others. Though, some art leave a last impression that is remembered eternally through its viewers and audience. Art, like a sphere, always remains alive and intact. Art exists everywhere in nature and society. Love itself is an art. Like everything else in history, art also has ups and downs. Rifts in the artist movement can cause new ideas to bloom bright red and take root in a society full of blue believers.

Icarus painting explication

In the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Bruegel uses contrasting brightness to express a certain mellow feeling in the presence of lively colors. The painting gives brightness from the sun, but on around all the brightness of the painting there is a certain darkness that is resting on the outskirts of the sun’s rays. Also, Bruegel uses countless symbols that can be interpreted many different ways. Some symbols that Bruegel uses also have symbols generally thought of, an symbols that are shown through his painting that both compare and contrast.

The sun has a large effect on the paint as a whole. In the center of the painting, the sun shines on everything within its contact, giving all those in contact, a bright luminous glow. However, the painting shows large areas that contain overwhelming amounts of shadow that one can’t help to notice. The shadow contrasting the sun symbolizes the negative side of life that coherently exists with the better side of life.

Scanning for life, the thin branching tree is lively with vegetation growing from each of its branches. As the sun sets, the suns leaving gives the tree a rather a dark shadow covering nearly the whole tree except a thin layer of light reflecting off the tree from the sun. Trees are commonly a symbol for life, growth, and doing well in life. The tree having a darkened glow to its bark shows a contrasting feeling to what trees symbolize; Trees symbolizing life, while darkness symbolizing death.

The field worker is plowing his field with the horse. Mindful of his hard work, the field worker works on the field day after day in order to get food in order to sell, eat, and live. Also, farmers often depend on the weather to have a good harvest season. This dependence shows how much of a risk the farmers take to live. A bad season of harvest can lead to a year of starvation and even death. Also, a farmer does not just work for his life; he has to work with nature. Working with nature is a wonderful thing, but innocent nature can turn into a devastating machine that goes against the needs of humanity. Farmers need nature for rain and sunlight. Nature can be cruel and give the farmers a flood, or a storm. Nature has both good and bad qualities. One nature delivers sanctuary, the other is a destroyer of harmony.

The ship on the waters in the gulf is traveling out onto open waters. The section of water where the sun illuminates seems to be the ships destination. Behind the ship, where the ship is sailing from, lies murky water. Behind the ship is murky dark water that gives me the feeling of polluted industrial water that was once pure. It’s water that is pure natural ocean water that was tainted by the pollution of society. The water can just about represent the entire planet, of how society and humanity, over time, has polluted the vast planet earth with its pollutants. This idea of pollutants can also apply to diffusion of ideas. How rumors, facts, and ways of thinking, such as religions, spread around to people.

The ship is traveling with the wind, not against it. This gives me another view on how society needs to work with nature, or else, nature will go against you. Nature is a force to be reckoned with. No man can work against nature and conquer it that is why man chooses to work with nature and conquer with it. Together, humans can create a world where he uses nature as his tool. A tool that will in effect destroy the earth itself.

The ship is traveling out. It seems as if the ship is sailing into unknown waters, unknown water resembling the unknown. People are so fascinated about the unknown because they don’t know what lies there. Society strives to know the unknown so much. Many religions have a god, and an afterlife that is an unknown. The sea today has the deep uncharted depths of the deep blue.

Behind the ship in the murky waters there seems to be a person either diving into the water, or drowning in the water. The person is in murky polluted water. This can symbolize humanity being lost in their own corrupted culture, a culture where false truths are told, and fake headlines are made to shield the population from the truth. Also, the person is drowning in water, an element of life and nature. This can either symbolize a person’s fight in life to survive or succeed, or it can also symbolize a person’s battle with nature, or in another hand, the gods. This drowning person’s struggle to survive can relate to the many Greek myths about heroes struggling against the impossible odds against gods, monsters, and creatures all in order to achieve a goal whether it may be to survive or save another life.

In the distance of the ship, there are mountains, mountains that look rather large from a distant, but still visible. These mountains leave a feeling of restraint. The mountains can represent a cage of imprisonment, limited grounds on which the boat can sail. Limits also remind me of how even after we’ve mapped out this entire earth, after we’ve mapped out each crack and cranny of this planet, there is still the whole universe yet to be discovered. Also, these mountains remind me of how the Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus. From there, the gods would govern or change the live of people who lived below. This can also directly relate on how the farmers have to work with nature in order to survive and live a good life/year. Nature is controlled by the gods, and in turn, working with nature is like working with the gods. To contrast that statement, working against nature, or working to defy nature, is also stating one is working against or working to defy the gods. In many Greek myths, there are many stories of heroes working with the gods to conquer countless monsters and creatures.

Mr. Gallagher, this should be 1,019 words without this sentence telling you that it’s 1,019 words. =D