A Blue Hole, Jamaica (Un Agujero Azul, Jamaica)

The first piece of art that I selected is called A Blue Hole, Jamaica (Un Agujero Azul, Jamaica), 1866.

This work by Fritz George Melbye (Elsinore, Denmark 1826—Shanghai, China 1896) is made by oil on canvas and was located in El Museo del Barrio. It is a landscape painting of—as the name suggests—of the Blue Hole Mineral Spring located just outside the city of Negril in Jamaica. It is a painting, honestly, of underwhelming proportions and in fact is dwarfed by many of the other larger more ostentatious pictures in the area. Its measurements are Height: 76.2 cm (30 in.), Width: 111.76 cm (44 in.) and as is typical of landscapes it is rectangular in shape. The color palette consists of many greens and blues to represent nature, contrasted with the transition towards light as the picture moves upward to the sky. The features of the landscape that stand out do so as a result of this stark contrast. Ultimately, I believe this results in the waterfall garnering primary attention with one’s eyes at last straying to the periphery to view the man on horseback accompanied by an attendant and the beauty of the rest of the natural world (including the impeccable foliage and the divine sky).

The main reason that I selected this painting, however, was the clear resemblance that I believe it exhibited to another of my favorite paintings, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie by Albert Bierstadt.

Not only do the two possess a very similar palette of colors—focusing on the greens while transitioning to light towards the center of the painting—but both clearly portray a transition to beautiful, heavenly white light as they transition towards the sky. Additionally, they both intend to show the majestic grandeur of nature by comparing a few, seemingly insignificant humans to the immense wilderness that abounds; while Biersadt’s landscape is much larger in size, the scale of human representation to nature is very similar in both. As I looked even more closely, I realized that both of these paintings were in fact created in the same year, 1866, by artists of Western European origin—Bierstadt from Germany and Melbye from Denmark—who each were born and passed away within a few years of each other. The similarities stop there, however, as one attempted to portray the Rocky Mountains while the other was focused on accurately depicting Jamaica’s natural beauty.

Melbye’s painting, I believe, is seemingly traditional and straightforward without any real attempt to push the boundaries of representationalism; it is fairly obvious that he attempts solely to show Jamaica for what it is and no more. However, I believe that Melbye was very successful in doing so because ultimately, though its likes have been done numerous times before, this work of art was still beautiful and well-crafted. This is not the type of art work which strives to revolutionize the world through profound meaning but rather to simplify the world through orderly perfection; it seemingly aims not for the brain but rather the heart and hopes, but does so extraordinarily well. In the end, I believe that it is necessary and sublime because in a world full of violence and corruption, oftentimes we require some agreeable art.