As per the specifications of this assignment, I tried to look at the work I’m researching, Children & Still Life by Leonard Baskin, where it hangs in the library for a solid 60 minutes, while taking notes. Regretfully I only managed around 25 minutes, and it probably would have been even less if I hadn’t been listing to music for some of it. I clearly need to practice sitting still more? Anyway, here are the notes I took.
Notes: Close Looking
- Right off the bat I’ve just noticed that there’s a cricket (maybe a grasshopper actually? it’s a bit big for a cricket) in the bottom of the print
- I know we’re supposed to be objective for analysis but I’m still recording that for the record, I am very happy about the cricket.
- It’s definitely a print but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of print just by looking. (it’s a woodblock according to the plaque but we’re not supposed to take that into account)
- It’s really detailed, lots of fine lines
- All solid black and white (hence why I know it’s a print)
- Two children in the background, still life in the foreground
- Still life consists of a bouquet of flowers, some nuts and fruits, and the cricket/grasshopper
- I don’t know what most of the flowers are but some look like thistles. The fruits are pomegranates and strawberries, I think, and the nuts look like walnuts maybe?
- The still life sits on a black table. The background wall is mostly white with some black at the top, which borders the middle of the work in black
- oh also did I mention it’s a circle? It’s a circle, on circular paper.
- The children in the background are naked I think. You can’t really tell because everything but their heads is behind the flower arrangement to some degree
- The flower arrangement has a lot of tiny leaves and branches in it. They look kind of spiderwebby. there might actually be a spiderweb in this, I can’t tell.
- The vase the flower arrangement is in has a floral pattern on it.
- I don’t know if the cricket is supposed to be alive or dead. The children are almost definitely alive though.
- They look kind of sad. Neutral on the smiling faces scale the doctor shows you at best.
- One is facing profile, the other is head on. I think the profile one is a boy and the other a girl, but can’t tell. I don’t think it’s meant to be important
There we go! I ran out of stuff to comment on after that. I realize now that I was supposed to hand write these, but I tend to take notes on my phone with google docs so that’s what happened here. It’s probably for the better, I would have just started drawing the cricket if I wrote this by hand. It really is a nice cricket. Or grasshopper.
