The High

On November 12th the High Museum was having a free day and I just had to go. Of course there were a lot of other people there to take advantage of the opportunity especially since Making African and Civil Rights Movement Photography exhibit was there. I had been to the High Museum before as a field trip during my junior year of high school, and yet I still forgot how massive the museum really it. There is just so much to see that it was exhausting by the end. I did find I few pieces that was drawn to. I mostly like art from earlier periods, but there were a few modern pieces that I liked.

I found myself drawn to a painting by Albert Herter entitled Portrait of Bessie. It was painted based off a painting down by James McNeil Whistler in which he composed a painting mainly using whites. I really like the by Herter because he used different tones of white to to distinguish the dress of the woman from the the fur of the bear and the background. I enjoyed seeing how he also used his brush strokes to further distinguish the figure of the woman from the fur of the bear. The dress is using smooth brushstrokes while short and noticeable brush strokes are used to give texture to the fur of the bear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really liked the pieces by Ikiré Jones from the Making Africa exhibit. The pieces mixed Renaissance conventions with West African elements. It provided a great visual and I love that time period, and I loved how she brought back black figures into that historical context because often times there is this erasure of black bodies from history which is what his piece made me think of. I also loved a photograph from the Civil Rights Movement exhibit called Mary Parker and  Caela Cowan by Dawoud Bey. It mixes past and present by depicting a woman who had grew up during the Baptist Church Bombing of 1963 and a girl around the age of the girls that died in the bombing. It was just a great juxtaposition.

Since it was a free day, practically everyone was there and there was just too many people in the museum for me. But, I still encouraged by trip to the High and I am glad that I got to see the new exhibits.

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