High Museum of Art - Free Essay Example

Introduction

The High Museum is the largest in Atlanta in the Southeastern United States, founded in 1905. After the High family, the museum gave out their home on Peachtree Street to accommodate the collection in 1926. The museum has more than 12,000 artwork in its permanent collection, including the American Art and European Art and the African Art, decorative arts and design, forks and self-taught art, photographs, and modern and contemporary art. My visit to the High is the most fantastic and memorable experience because apart from the housing work of arts, it also welcomes several visiting exhibitions throughout the year. Moreover, it allows youth and family programs. The paper describes the specific pieces mentioned above found in the High Museum of Art in the United States.

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African Art

African art reflects the deep and rich history art form of ancient times and represents the African diaspora's breadth and depth. It broadly explains the historical and modern paintings, masks, sculptures, metalwork, beadwork, installation, and fine textiles. In African art, the wooden mask was the most form of art in West Africa. Mask is seen as a vital element because it was highly stylized with human figures. They were mostly made for religious ceremonies like initiation, crop harvesting, and war preparation (Zamani et al. 853-879). During the mask ceremony, the dancers go into a deep state of mind to communicate with their ancestors. These wooden masks are decorated in different materials such as plant fibers, human hair, and ivory.

Furthermore, the masks represented the norms, traditions, and culture. Metalwork was another piece of African art. They saw Copper and brass as mediums of exchange, power, and status. Gold and silver were used to make unique jewelry while iron-made bracelets, heavy neck rings, and anklets. Metalwork was mostly for the utilitarian of the object, such as the Asante cast-brass. Today, they are used by tourists as airport art, and in hospitals, they are used to prevent the spread of infection. African sculpture was often figurative; thus, it represented the true nature of the black human form carved from wood or stones. Furthermore, often used for communication purposes between the human and the forces of the supernatural. Even though art differs in material and form, its aesthetic element provides a mutual ground for understanding its complexity.

European Art

European art is another piece of artwork found in the High Museum of art in the United States. It has more than 11,000 paintings and sculptures. European art's main objective was to trace scientific discovery, religion, and social change within the European culture. The Giovanni Bellini's Madonna and child, Vittore Carcpaccio's Prudence, and Temperance were the major artworks found in the High's European art collection. Kress Foundation donated these pieces in 1958, and this made the European museum grow famous and becoming the significant styles and art movement. After the European post-war, the art mostly reflected the artist's heart and soul's anguish against the world backdrop encountering change and hardship. William Scott, a European painter, was highly interested in abstraction rather than the chaotic tensions. His primary interest was to explore shapes and colors (Zamani et al. 853-879). Scott's object of painting was mostly pots and pans, and somehow, his painting instilled a sense of calm, comfort, and amusement to the people.

During the European post-war period, the artists also used photographs to be less expensive and highly convenient. The public's desire to understand what was happening and what had happened led to the need for printed news since it could capture visual information, leading to the emergence of picture magazines. During the European war, photographs enabled the black people in Europe to convey what had happened or what was happening to them through pictures and visual information. The pictures are displayed mostly during demonstrations and protests.

The European art museum also has several sculptures, such as the King Decabalus statue. The statue is believed to keep watch at the river entrance between Serbia and Romania border, just like it protected the country from Roman invaders. The Venus of Milo is another sculpture in Paris, France, which represents the Aphrodite goddess. It was found by a peasant who was in search of suitable stones to be used to build walls. Moreover, the Manneken Pis statue is in the middle of the Grand Place of Brussels-Belgium (Zafran & Eric npg). The sculpture represents a legendary brave little boy who saved Grand Place from the destruction of a bomb thrown by Napoleon's troops.

Modern Art

Photography and modern and contemporary art is another piece of artwork at the High Museum. In the early 1970s, the High started collecting photographs, making it one of the earliest museums to commit to this different display medium. The photography department is the most extensive nationwide program with more than 7,500 prints. This collection holds the work of most artists, entrepreneurs, and diverse practitioners. The photography collection aims to maintain a strong base of pictures of work within a global context. Photographs of the civil rights movement are one of the most significant collections owned by the High Museum of art. Apart from being the strong base of pictures, it also gives special attention to pictures made, serving as the most significant and most vital repository representing the religion's contribution to photography history.

Picturing the south initiative has established and commissioned upcoming photographers to produce work inspired by the cultural landscape and area's geographical. Some of these past participants include Alex Webb, Sally Mann, and Emmet Gowin, whose commission is added to the permanent collection to the High Museum of art (Zafran & Eric npg). This artwork of photographing pictures has supported black lives matter, where the black people who were lost during the war their pictures are taken and placed in the museum as a memory of what they achieved. Also, the pictures represented the achievement and contribution of the leader. When these pictures appear in the walls, the black people feel represented, thus feeling a sense of belonging.

Conclusion

The modern and contemporary art at the High narrows the improvement of innovative visual languages that have influenced the people's understanding, preciseness, and interpretation of world human experience and histories. The collection includes outstanding artwork by seminal artists and features multiple works by artists such as Alex Katz and Radcliffe Bailey and the upcoming artists.

Works Cited

Zamani, Pegah, and John Peponis.’’Co-visibility and pedagogy: innovation and challenge at the High Museum of Art”.The Journal of Architecture 15.6 (2010): 853-879.

Zafran, Eric M. European art in the High Museum. High Museum of Art, 1984.