Feelings and thoughts on night at the Brooklyn Museum

       

These were the two paintings about which my group and I discussed at length during the night at the museum. The two paintings could not be more different yet the conversations we had seemed to be linked and had commonalities. One is called “shooting for beef” and uses realistic colors and tones to depict its scene of men in a shooting competition in the old west. The other is called “Revolutionary” and uses vibrant, luscious colors and an extravagant composition to portray a black woman during the civil rights movement. We first discussed the social story conveyed by “Revolutionary” and the connection between the psychedelic colors and the activism expressed by the African-American Woman in the painting. As the discussion bore on, we discovered that the key to understanding a painting was to observe and build the narrative as you look and feel the painting in you. There was an evolution of understanding as we considered all the elements of the painting and weighed them. The same evolution characteristic of our first conversation was true for our discussion of “shooting for beef”. It transitioned from a simple observational discussion to a talk about life versus death and joy versus despair. Like I said in class, it felt as though each room flowed into the next and the stories of each artwork blended into a mirage. I had not been in an art museum in some time, and it was refreshing to return to one and in these circumstances.