Professor Schwarz was kind enough to take a group of students, and some other interested members of the party, around the Johnson Museum for a tour!

I’d been to the Museum before, but I hadn’t had commentary from someone as experienced in the field of art history as Professor Schwarz. I’m really so glad I went, because I wouldn’t be able to get his insight from anywhere else in the world. He clearly cares a lot for the specific pieces of art housed at the Johnson, and he talked to us about the pieces in a way that was interactive.

For one piece in particular, he gave me a literal new perspective. There’s a long, Walking sculpture on the second floor, literally titled the Walking Man. He’s tall, and freakishly elongated. He’s grey, and withered looking, and his face is long and droopy. To be quite honest, he looks a little grotesque.

Professor Schwarz explained to us that what was important about this sculpture had to include the spaces. The spaces between his legs were important; and the face, of course, was a focal point — if we couldn’t see the face from where we were standing, move! That’s the fun thing about art, and particularly sculptures, and particularly this sculpture. So we shifted around in a circle, and saw the Walking Man from a new perspective.

Just before this event, my professor was telling us a story about the time he got back from visiting Ireland. He told his friends that he didn’t go to any of the museums, and they were appalled. He broke the intelligentsia code. I thought a lot about this because I wasn’t sure I really liked museums either, and I felt bad about it. I hadn’t even gone to the Johnson, and it was ten minutes away.

So this event came at a good time. Our tour guide is an art professor at Cornell. He had some interesting insights. It seems like you almost need to be a full-on historian to understand art, to know all the social movements and wars and cultural trends, to understand what odd little antiques exist in the paintings, to understand the different ways of life that inspired different scenes. I did feel that some of the things he said fit into the stereotypical overanalysis of art.

Looking around the Johnson was amazing. They have some fantastic pieces there, including one that I, an art philistine, recognized: The Goose Girl by Adolphe William Bouguereau. After the event, I got to see this interesting musical performance on the first floor. It is to my understanding that the Johnson comes with new exhibits every so often, so I would love to catch the next time they have something new.

Out of the events I attended this semester as a Rose Scholar, this was one of the ones I learned the most in. I had been to the Johnson Museum before, but didn’t understand most of the artwork. So, having a passionate and helpful professor and understudy was really helpful. Some of their interpretations of art really resonated with me, such as how a statue of a walking man represented pain and strife in the time period around WWII, while other interpretations were surprising and still don’t make no sense to me, such as how a painting of a young girl with geese can be suggestive and sexual. I wish I could say I came out of this event with a newfound ability to understand artwork, but I still lack the experience and the historical knowledge. However, I definitely feel more confident in my ability to appreciate artwork if there’s an expert there to explain the art and artist’s context to me!

Attending the Johnson museum was an interesting experience. I have gone to a couple museums throughout my life, but I never had a “tour guide” to explain the intricate details of art and different ways to look at art. The professor was very helpful in trying to look at art analytically rather than just looking at the aesthetics. For example, one of the first sculptures we looked at was an emaciated figure that was very lengthy and tall. If the professor was not there to guide us, I definitely would have looked at the piece of art and be confused as to why it was displayed in the museum. There was no flamboyant color or detailed carvings. It looked like a blob of clay that has been molded into a human shape. However, thanks to the professor, he was able to make us think critically and gave us hints like the year the sculpture was made and refer back to history and deduce that it was portraying a human figure from World War II.

I actually had an assignment for my Greek Mythology class where I had to go to the Johnson museum and look at pieces of art that pertained to Greek mythology. Fortunately, right after the event was over, I was able to find a painted plate that depicted Menelaus and Helen and analyze it the way the professor taught us moments ago. Completing the assignment was so much easier because of it and I definitely am able to look at art more critically than before.

I went to the Johnson Museum having gone once before but wanting to get a more in depth experience out of it this time around. I did not expect that we would have a tour guide, so I was really interested this time.

I was really interested when we went up a floor to see the next few paintings to see a statue of a tall, emaciated, and anthropomorphic figure that looked like it had had all the life sucked out of it. My first thoughts were “this person looks lifeless, like a college student on a Monday morning”. Without the tour guide I probably would not have thought more about the history or significance of the sculpture, but he (the tour guide) explained the history of the sculpture so thoroughly and explained how the sculpture was an embodiment of pessimism. Another interesting work was a painting that looked like it had been drawn by a child. It was a happy face, but it seemed to be in distress and mentally unstable, like it were losing its sanity. The tour guide explained that it was originally a drawing from a person in an insane asylum and I thought it must have been the person recreating themselves and what they feel.

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip, and would definitely go back again to explore different parts of the museum.

I recently attended a tour of the Johnson museum for Rose Scholars. Although I have been in the museum in the past, I thought that it was really interesting to have a professor guide us through the museum. I especially thought his analysis of the walking man statue and “finger-painting” painting was interesting. I really enjoyed this tour, and I will definitely come back soon.

The modern art museum lecture by Professor Schwartz was interesting because it was a cultural history, rather than a tour to analyze the formal composition of art.  This is important because we learned art is speaks to the moment in which it was created.  We learned about the Interwar Weimar Republic and its contribution to the creativity that the artist depicted.  We were surprised at how closely many of the artists during the Interwar period in Berlin were communicating, and inspiring each other’s work.  We talked to the need for artists to contribute to political dialogue.  Especially with regard to sculptural piece depicting the horrors of war, we, as a group talked about the importance of art as a way to communicate different the impact of different wars.  I thought that was especially important because, as Professor Schwarz stated, the art is understood through the frame that the folks who are viewing it see.  I was also impressed at the array of the Hudson River school artworks because I had already been introduced to many of those artists in an art history course that I had taken.  What I had failed to notice in my trips to the Johnson before was the number of Hudson River school artists on display.  I had simply walked right by them without stopping and really looking at them which is what Professor Schwartz had us do at our trip to the Johnson.

Since I am in CALS and spend a lot of time on the Ag Quad, I don’t get a lot of opportunities to enjoy Cornell’s other highlights, such as the Johnson Museum. I was able to go at night once the first day of orientation, but after that, I found myself too busy to visit. I enjoy looking at art, and from a young age, I have always had a lot of respect and appreciation for artists. Back home I would often visit the art museum, and I have missed going since coming here, so this event was a great chance for me to visit an art museum again. I enjoyed seeing various art pieces and listening to Professor Schwartz explain how to look at art. He mainly talked about the historical contexts behind the art and how they add to the meaning. For example, we looked at one sculpture of a tall, slender man cast from bronze that was created in the 1960s, and Professor Schwartz talked about how the artist was using the piece as a commentary on the effect of the Holocaust and atomic bomb.

The SA for the event raised this question, but I was also wondering the same thing. I think that it’s a similar problem in both interpreting literature and art, but I always wonder where the line is drawn between what the artist intended the piece to mean and what the viewer is simply extrapolating. More so, does it even matter? As soon as an artist releases a piece to the public, does their own perception of what it means (if they even have one) even matter anymore, or is all that matters what the piece means to the individual? Viewers pick up on the most minute of details, and it’s hard for me to believe that one line or word can hold so much intentional meaning. Especially in being an artist myself, I think that artists simply produce what they feel the need to and aren’t necessarily consciously thinking through the exact meaning of every stroke. It seems to me that the majority of a piece’s meaning is determined by the audience.

I found myself on Saturday morning wondering why I had voluntarily decided to sacrifice a few additional hours of sleep on the weekend to instead visit an art museum. Begrudgingly, I walked up to the Johnson with my peers and was instead astonished by the cultural experience I was immersed in. As we were directed to observe certain art pieces, I quickly understood that there are a multitude of angles from which to approach each artifact, and the interpretation is never as simple as one might believe. However, the proper way to analyze and study an art piece is through application of historical context and modern understanding of certain art forms. I definitely gained much from this trip outside of simply knowing how to more accurately observe art from different historical time periods, as it was beneficial to try and sympathize with the creator of each piece, through attempts to imagine his motive and intention at the time of its creation. Furthermore, I enjoyed how studying art facilitates an enhanced understanding of human nature and our historical evolution, which in turn allows us to understand each other in the context of the modern world and its variable components.

The affective experience of the aesthetic is certainly one of the most valuable experiences we can have. While I have been to the Johnson Museum before, I find that every visitation (just as in every reading of a text) allows other things to reveal themselves to me. Understanding the infinite meanings articulated in every artwork that we can never begin to encapsulate or master is one of the guiding principles of my own academic (and personal) work. What we can see within the work is constituted by the archive we carry within ourselves. Nonetheless, it was really amazing to be able to hear what other people saw within the works that I have so often passed my myself. Professor Schwarz illuminated the immense power of art using some familiar approaches from his classes (“always the text, always historicize”).

On Saturday, I attended the modern art tour at the Johnson given by professor Schwartz. Honestly, I though it was a great time. I took AP Art History in high school but haven’t really entered that world of observing art critically since. It was a true treat to be able to look at the pieces we did in such depth. The way Professor Schwartz led it made it feel like we were all just picking each other’s brains, and I think that kind of subjectivity and ability to discuss fluidly has always been my favorite thing about art history. I plan on  frequenting the Johnson myself now to analyze and draw some inspiration from the art base don some of the lessons form Professor Schwartz’s tour.

Yesterday, we saw and analyzed some of the art pieces in the Johnson Museum with Professor Schwartz. We saw some of the more well-known pieces in the museum, and learned about how to view and understand art. One of the things that I found interesting was that in order to understand the meaning of an art piece, we have to first contextualize and think about what the artist was trying to say during the time when the piece was created. The time period in which the piece was made is especially important, because major events in that period of history can shed light on some of the meanings behind a particular work. However, the audience does not have to interpret a piece solely based on the artist’s experiences or the artist’s intention. Art can be understood differently by each person, and everyone’s individual experiences and knowledge can affect how they will interpret an artwork. I think that it’s important that each person develop their own perspectives and interpretations of an artwork, and that these differences in perspective allow each person to have their own experience at an art museum.

I’ve been to a handful of art museums, and I never quite understood how some people can look at a painting or sculpture for such long periods of times. I believe that many people approach museums with the goal of viewing every exhibit to “get the most out of their museum ticket.” While this might free up time for other activities during a vacation, ironically, these people are really wasting their museum ticket.

Professor Schwartz’s tour of the Johnson museum yesterday was a perfect example of how to make the most out of an art museum visit. We did not see every piece of artwork or even every floor of the museum, yet I still found that this hour long tour was the most intriguing time I have had at an art museum. I learned about the importance of understanding the context behind a piece of art. Recognizing the setting of a piece of art, reveals the purpose and story of the work. We analyzed one piece of art that looked like a child had painted it. Considering the context, however, I learned that the artist was really mocking the current artwork scene in France. After WWII, many people only considered fine art to be artwork, but this piece’s purpose was to show that art can be nontraditional (the entire painting was created using sand and oil).

Next time, I visit an art museum I definitely plan on spending more time on each piece of artwork to truly understand the story behind the work and what the artist was trying to achieve.