Museum Assignment

Museum Assignment

The two museums that were visited were the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). While the MOCA held artist that were fairly new, the LACMA held quite a few of well known artist such as Jackson Pollock, Maynard Dixon, or Thomas Hart Benton. When visiting MOCA the most interesting artwork that was appealing was "War Never Ends" by Mathew Monahan, and when visiting the LACMA the most interested artwork that was appealing to me was "Mountain of the Holy Cross" by Thomas Moran. Through proper analysis of each of these artworks and artists, it will help show a better understanding of each artist as an individual and their mindset when creating artwork.

The first artist is unknown and his name is Mathew Monahan with his artwork titled "War Never Ends." Monahan was born in 1972 in Eureka, California. He is now an artist based in Los Angeles. Monahan studied at Cooper Union School of Art in New York and the Gerit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Holland; both representing him by the Anton Kern Gallery in New York and Fons Welters in Amsterdam. Monahan uses symbolism in his artwork to express their meanings. He created sculptures that were meant to recorded histories, equally in his own mindset and of cultural knowledge. Using a variety of different mediums, he scalps unique representations out of his own creative output. In his artwork, "War Never Ends", he uses a variety of mediums such as wood, wax, drywall, charcoal, paper glass, and foam. Using these materials he creates a 2 x 2 x6 ft sculpture of his idea that "War Never Ends. Monahan created this piece of work in 2005, most likely relating to the War on Iraq.

The second artist is a known artist and his name is Thomas Moran. His artwork is called "Mountain of the Holy Cross." Thomas Moran was known for being one of America's greatest landscape artists. Thomas was born in 1837 in Bolton, Lancashire, England. Destined to be a great artist him and his family sailed to America in April 1844, and lived in Philadelphia. Not satisfied as an engraver, in 1861 he and his brother sailed the British Isles where he studied upon his favorite artist, H.M.W Turner learning about light and color. After his trip, he returned to America where he had the opportunity to travel westward because the government sponsored survey teams to explore and map the new land. This is where he created several of his landscape artworks, including "Mountain of the Holy Cross." Moran's artworks were on a very large scale. His "Mountain of the Holy Cross" was 82 Ð'Ð... x 64 Ð'ј in. At first one would think he did the artwork on a large scale to show the message behind the painting, however, upon further research, Moran most likely created the artwork on a large scale because of the demand of large scale paintings in the art culture. His painting most likely purpose was to show people that the expansion westward was a good thing.

Mathew Monahan's artwork was very interesting because it offered many different perspectives to look from. It being a sculpture gave the opportunity to walk around the artwork and view it from many different angles always seeing something new. The sculpture was composed of many different mediums such as wood, wax, drywall, charcoal, paper glass, and foam. The base of the structure was made with drywall, and a case made of glass was set on top. Inside that glass case is his wax models, and outside right on the very top of the case is a crumpled paper charcoal head drawing looking over the whole case. The colors of wax that Monahan used on the wax models are very dull and bland. It looks as if he purposely put the wax together sloppily maybe to show a message about war. After looking upon the whole artwork as a whole, it looks as if the quality making the structure was poorly put together.

Thomas Moran's artwork was very interesting because how detailed and large his painting is. In "Mountain of the Holy Cross," Moran uses vivid detail when creating this piece of scenery. Moran's color palette in this painting has a bright, inviting quality. In his painting he also uses implied line, focusing the viewer's to follow the valley straight to the top of the mountain. Moran's painting contains