Last Friday college bound Grace Outreach students participating in our Bronx Opportunity Network Summer Scholarship program headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our guide was Halston Bruce, Art Historian and Grace Outreach fundraiser.
Halston guided us through galleries, from the Romanticism period through Contemporary, asking students to think about medium, message, historical development, and social and political situations that led to the art were were viewing.
Each student chose a piece of artwork that interested them and wrote reflection papers this week describing what they saw, analyzing their viewing experience, evaluating the artists message, and interpreting the work from their point of view.
Sandy Herrera wrote about the “The Penitent Magdalen,” by Corrado Giaquinto observing :”The bottom of the painting the artist decided to paint in all black. I would have liked him to paint her feet since she walked a long distance to the isolated caves– her feet would have been bloody and bruised.”
Javielis Pagan says that she chose to write about Henri Rousseau’s “The Repast of the Lion” because “I know that even though it has its own meaning I can make that meaning my own. It makes me feel like no matter what my surroundings tell me I can be as strong as a lion.”
Crystal Frances wrote: “I feel like George Condo’s “Rush Hour” is art because its open to peoples interpretation of what they see. His art is not a single thing that you can look at and walk way, instead you have to stand and analyze the piece and soak in everything you can and then move on.”