Fine Art Critique Paper

Germaine Armstrong Professor Hale MU2313 Critique Paper When I went home last weekend I attempted to go to the Arlington Museum of Art. Unfortunately the museum was closed due to the fact that they where changing exhibits and would not reopen until the following week. I returned back to San Marcos and decided I would go to The Wittliff Collections here on campus. To my surprise it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Being on just one floor of a building I thought it would be a pretty limited museum but it is way bigger than expected. There are four exhibits on display in the museum.
One is a permanent display in the museum. There are also a couple of smaller displays in an area in the museum. I couldn’t take any pictures in the museum due to the many signs up saying not to. The exhibit that is on permanent display is The Lonesome Dove Collection. Arguably the greatest western made is based on the Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. On display there are many things from scripts from the TV show to trail maps used to show the geography of the land on the show. The collection is pretty amazing to me and I am not really a fan of lonesome dove.
There are so many small details of the show that you get to see. It really catches your attention. You get to see so many of the props from guns to the saddles they used on horses. Though this is the only permanent exhibit the other exhibits are equally as great. Another Exhibit on display is called Face to Face Portraits. This exhibit shows the work of over 30 photographers. From photos that included Willie Nelson and Texas State alumni George Strait to homeless men, women, and children from across the world. Two pieces from this exhibit really caught my attention.

One of the pictures I found very interesting being that of an older gentlemen sitting in a chair that I thought to be pretty unique. The chair he is sitting in caught my eye as soon as I looked at the photo. The arms of the chair have been carved to look like the head of a cougar, with the legs the chair being cougar legs. The wood of the chair has many different shades of color. The man sitting in the chair is actually dressed cleanly but you can clearly see that he is a man of lower class. He has on old sneakers and looks like he is out in the sun for a good majority of his time.
This one photograph made me ask myself many questions such as “is he wealthy or poor? ” and “is that his chair or just used for the picture? ” or maybe “did he make the chair and wants to sell it? ” The photo really made me think more than any other in exhibit. The other photo or photos in the exhibit that caught my eye were those of Willie Nelson. He had several photos as well as other notable things such as one of his songbooks on display. Nelson had his very on little display case of many notable pictures and accomplishments of his. The reason I really like this is because I am a fan of Willie’s music.
Not only am I a fan but also Willie actually owned a gas station and a house not even ten miles away from where I grew up. So I have gone and seen many notable things that have happened in his career as he put many things on display in his gas station. The most unique thing in the display was a songbook that Willie Nelson wrote when he was ten years old. Seeing more of his accomplishments was awesome. A third exhibit was Global Odyssey: From Texas to the world and back. It showcased many stories of Texas writers as they traveled the world. There are stories form men who severed in Vietnam.
This was my least favorite exhibit of any not to say it was a bad one but it just did not catch my attention like the other exhibits. The final exhibit was Las Sombras The Shadows. This exhibit I thought was the coolest of them all. The Photograms by Kate Breakey are amazing. This was my most favorite because I am an animal lover. Many of the photos captured wild animals in their natural environment. There are several rooms with pictures from this exhibit. One room had most of my attention. The room was all pictures taken from a video that was filmed by a camera left in the woods.
Other photos where actually like the outline of many animals. The most intriguing photo to me was a picture of a wolf. The Wolf is actually walking right toward the camera and looking directly in to the lens with its head tilted a little to one side. I like this photo because it shows the wolf checking out its surroundings and actually examining something odd. It looks as if the wolf knows that the camera is not suppose to be there. In all the other photos the animals are either running or walking right by the camera. I am actually glad I went to the museum on campus and it’s the museum I choose to write about.
If I did not have to do this critique and the museum in Arlington was not closed I probably would have never visited the museum on campus. Having went I really enjoyed myself. I thought it was worth every minute of my time and I could see myself visiting it many more times before I am don at Texas State. I went to the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth Texas to watch the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. I was sitting pretty high up but still had a great seat and could hear perfectly. Before going to watch the performance I read a couple of reviews online.
Most of the reviews praised the orchestra for there performance in concerts earlier this year. The concert I attended would include pieces from three composers John B Hedges, Schumann, and Rimsky-Korsakov. I arrived to the concert pretty early and after I walked around for a little bit I found my seat, which turned out to be way better than, I expected when I first got there. When I first got to my seat I could see the stage fine but thought I might not be able to hear very well being so high up. Boy was I wrong when the members of the orchestra began to warm up I could hear everything crystal clear.
Having never being at one of these big concerts before I found it weird how everyone warmed up separately. With them warming up like that it sounded like a bunch of senseless noise. As it got closer to show time the senseless noise became certain people warming up together to whole sections warming up together and was pretty cool. The concert started out with a piece by John B Hedges called Slapdance. This piece of music was filled with a lot of life and energy. One of the reasons I really enjoyed this piece was because of the many percussion instruments used.
I was in my high school band and my favorite pieces would always be the fast paced exciting music filled with percussion. This piece had me on the edge of my seat and really excited for the rest of the concert. The piece following Slapdance was a piece by Schumann by the name of Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129. This piece though not as exciting as the first piece was pretty good. It started out slow but it picked up as the song continued. This piece had a solo for a cello. The solo was played by a guest cellist Alban Gerhardt which I learned later is considered one of the great cellist of our time.
Though this was my least favorite piece it was not because I did not like it but because I really liked the other two more. After the first two pieces there was an intermission. Most people got up and left the performance room but I stayed just to observe and see what the orchestra would be doing. To my surprise many of them got up and went backstage but a few of them stayed on the stage and seemed to practice he up coming piece. Seeing professional musicians stay on stage and continue to practice up to right before they played was pretty cool to see. After the 15 minute intermission every on returned to their seats.
The entire orchestra came back to the stage for the final piece Scheherazade, Op. 35 written by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Being the final piece it was the longest of the three selections. I really enjoyed this piece because it had many parts some parts where very slow but it had plenty of exciting parts. This piece actually tells many Indian-Arabian tales called A Thousand and One Nights. This piece even though written hundreds of years later is as well known as the stories. The performance hall where the concert was held was an amazing place to see. When I first arrived and saw the building I thought “this is the building. Not knowing that I actually wasn’t at the front of the building but the side. Once I got inside everything was extremely incredible. The building didn’t look nearly as large from the outside. When I walked into where the performance would be held I was in awe. The stage was set down at the bottom from where I was with four different levels of seats. Having never been to a place like it I thought it would be awesome to play music in a place like that. The Bass Performance is an amazing place. By attending this classical music concert I learned that I could actually enjoy this type of music.
The cost for the concert was actually pretty cheap and the seat I had I think was pretty good. I feel like the concert was worth my money and my time. My high school football coach use to always tell me that going outside your comfort zone makes you broaden your mind on what you think is good and bad. Before going to the concert I would have never thought that I would enjoy the music as much as I did. Even though I enjoyed it I probably will not go to another one just to go. After going and my brother and I being the only two younger people there it felt a little uncomfortable.
It is something I could see myself going to when I get older. For right now though I would rather go to something with more excitement and people my age. Picking a movie to critique for this paper was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I could not decide if I wanted to pick a movie I had never seen or one I have seen many times. Did I want to pick a movie that I liked or one that I hated? I decide that I would pick a movie I did not like to see if me critiquing the movie would change how I viewed it or would my opinion stay the same.
The movie I choose to critique was the movie Clueless written and directed by Amy Heckerling. The movie is based on a very popular girl in high school who along with her best friend helps the new nerdy kid that arrives at their school to fit in. By changing how the new kid dresses, talks, and trying to get her a boyfriend. Cher Horowitz the main character of the movie is at the top of her schools social scene. Her father is a rich lawyer so she has everything she has ever wanted. Going to high school in Beverly Hills she is obsessed with her fashion.
She likes to think she is just as normal as a regular girl but has a closet that puts her outfits together. She is the typical example of “daddy’s little girl”. Even when given rules to follow she somehow always manages to find a loophole and does what she wants. She is your typical “brat”. The one thing she cannot seem to get is a boy. The movie is told from Cher’s point of view as she tries to help friends and ultimately help herself before the movie ends. Cher’s best friend is Dionne. Dionne understands Cher because she faces all the same popular girl problems.
Dionne helps Cher with her fashion and trying to give the new kid a makeover. At first Cher is against Dionne and her boyfriend’s relationship but after a near accident Cher realizes that the two are in love and ends up envying their relationship. Tai Frasier is the ugly unpopular nerd that transfers to Cher and Dionne’s school. As soon as she arrives Cher makes it a point of hers to transfer the goofy nerd into one of the popular girls. Dionne is uneasy with the idea at first but Cher uses her charming ways to convince her to do it. Tai immediately falls behind Cher and Dionne and listens to everything the two says.
She is attracted to an unpopular boy but ignores him because Cher and Dionne says she should be dating one of the most popular boys at school. Mel Horowitz is the father of Cher. He is a very successful litigator who pays more attention to his work than to his daughter. He tries to discipline Cher throughout the movie but she manages to always find a way to get off easy. Josh Lucas is Cher’s ex-stepbrother. Her father used to be married to Josh’s mother. Josh has ambitions to be a lawyer and tries to learn many things from Mel. Josh and Cher flirt throughout the movie but when she sees josh and Tai flirting she becomes jealous.
However Josh and Cher ends up falling for each other at the very end of the movie. When Cher realizes she cannot connect with any other boy because she loves him. Christian Stovitz is one of Cher’s main love interests in the movie until she finds out that he is gay. Christian arrives at midway trough the school year and immediately gets Cher’s attention. She goes out with him several times and even tries to seduce him. When it does not work she thinks it as something to with herself. After complaining about it to Dionne and her boyfriend Cher is told he is gay and she now understands him more.
Throughout the film Cher refers to herself as clueless many times. Even though she had many answers for others problems she often found herself clueless to her own. She helps many of her friends with fashion and boys. She is not able to get any boy she wants. She becomes aware of this and becomes depressed. Shopping helps her depression for a little while but she still finds herself down. She finally overcomes her depression when admits to herself that she loves Josh. After reading reviews on this movie it was actually a pretty big hit in 1995. The movie was much more popular than most expected.
It is still a very popular movie because many girls can relate to the things that happen in it. This movie is not based on a true story but the events that happen I am sure are possible. Even though I went to a small high school I have seen many girls freak out over many silly things. All of the things Cher goes through sounds like typical girl problems. After seeing this movie several times and now critiquing it I still think that it is overly hyped and I do not think it is a movie I would watch just to watch. There would have to be a reason I would watch it. I think my opinion is like this because I cannot relate to the movie.