Beautiful over youtube, better in concert

Dublin Philharmonic: Dvorak's New World Symphony, 1st Movement

Dvorak's New World Symphony is a very long but incredibly moving piece that was made during the nineteenth century. The work has numerous solos and changes in styles. I enjoy orchestrated music very much, and Dvorak's style of very loud, powerful melodies appeals to me sicne it causes the effect of his pieces to be easier to sense. If any readers like Dvorak's work, I suggest other artists such as Gustav Holst and Hector Berlioz, who also tend to make pieces with easy to grasp melodies.

Photography

The invention of the camera allows any moment in time to be visually frozen for eternity. This gift of immortalization, however tempting, is now overused by men; with such great supply of pictures, the demand is low. Photographs, such as the one below, can have a obvious meaning and effect on its audience, but unlike paintings and true works of art, do not send actual emotions to a viewer. The image below would likely shock an audience at the monstrous acts taking place in the death camps in nazi-controlled Europe, but does not give any information or perception on how the creator of the image perceived his subject or his subject's situation.

Holocaust prisoner at Camp gusen, Austria.

Alice gone wrong.

Ever since I was little, Alice in Wonderland has been story of absolutely nightmarish proportions about which I tried my best not to think. Although I've yet to read the novels (They are pretty low on my priorities, unfortunately. I want to read Atlas Shrugged first) the Disney cartoon alone baffles me. A girl goes into a hole chasing a rabbit and finds some world where things make absolutely no sense. Such a clear-cut presence of chaos is something that tends to violate my strong internal locus of control and causes me to feel as if I am unimaginably helpless. I am often left lost in my own muddled thoughts, trying to make sense of what I've witnessed, and am left with some skewed and poorly crafted context that never existed. My rationalities and intellectualizations leave me in a worse state than I was in before mulling over Alice.By my definition of art, Alice in Wonderland is quite the masterpiece. I am left with a changed perception, and have been granted a stimuli that will vex me for hours.
What was once just a cartoon and a novel, however, has seen a change in medium. American McGee, an independent videogame designer, has revolutionized my childhood trauma. The preview for Alice 2 can be found here (watch at your own expense, nothing explicit shown but chilling nevertheless): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV5Wl5FfBEc&feature=player_embedded

Art: Naturally Occuring

When people think of nature, many things come to mind. Mountains, trees, and fauna would all probably be brought up when talking to a typical person about what nature is. A scholarly person might bring up smaller parts of nature (by smaller, I mean less visible) such as gravity or chemical reactions or cells in an organism. All of these things are natural, but one thing that is often seen as being too abstract to be of nature is art.
Art, which in a past blog post has been defined as a novel stimuli that triggers deeper thought and possibly alters one's perceptions, too abstract for nature? If humans are really a collective mass of chemicals, and we need ways to change some of these chemicals around (see: outlet, release) art is most assuredly natural. It is simply the product of a chemical reaction that influences much more than just a re-combination of atoms.
One thing that is very notable about nature is its stubbornness. If a  fish is taken out of water, it dies. If you put me into water, I'll probably try to swim to shore. If I don't make it, I will probably die. If you were to just put an ocean into the middle of a desert, the ocean would flatten out because of gravity and all sorts of chaos would ensue.
So then, since it is not acceptable to mess with nature's rules, why is it okay to remove a painting from its source? If someone took a beautiful tapestry from the High Museum in Atlanta and stuck it in a bathroom, it would probably have much less meaning. If an altar is moved from a church to the moon, it becomes a rock.
By all means, the location of a piece is just about as significant to a work as the context and history of the work itself.

Something is definitely wrong here.

The effect of an aura.

In Walter Benjamin's piece Illuminations, Benjamin discusses the effects a novel stimuli can have on an observer, such as a breathtaking mountain view. This effect is only obtainable from that one point of view, and is what makes the view authentic and adds depth to what is being perceived. One artist, known as Thomas Moran (a likely candidate for an up-and-coming art essay) is known for painting landscapes and images of nature. Although I might be viewing a mere reproduction of his work halfway across the world, his pieces transmit the awe that inspired their creation very well.
Moran has a consistent use of contrasting shades to bring out the depth, magnificence and mysteriousness of whatever scene he is trying to capture. Most of his paintings have large bodies of water that are usually very forceful in appearance, such as this image's waterfall. His paintings are often set at a long distance, allowing his pictures to contain several elements that add to the work's overall effect on an exhibitor.

Trying to interpret a piece.

"Home for Blue Jays", by Rebecca Richman

After reading a piece for literature class on the relationships between Semiotics and Art History, I took a moment to reflect on what I know of semiotics and to prime my own definition of semiotics. Originally I knew semiotics concerned symbols amongst art pieces, and later I found that semiotics involves any sort of interpretation amongst art.
I chose Home for Blue Jays for this post because of some of the schema it revolves around. The colors are kept light and crisp, to reflect the wintry state of this image. Darker colors would likely not reflect a proper habitat for a Blue Jay, given that darker colors would probably involve a nighttime setting (when birds tend to sleep). Also, the color scheme is kept very simple, like those found in nature. Extraneous coloration would often be interpreted as a more bio-diverse landscape, like a rain forest.
To further the idea that the environment pictured by Richman is in Winter, there are snowflakes drawn to the front of the image. Snow only occurs in during colder seasons, and would impress the idea that Bluebirds prefer colder ecosystems amongst an audience.
The landscape is also barren of any predators. A creature with fangs bared, or some beast running off into the forest would represent danger and would not mix well with the idea of an ideal place for Blue Jays. Birds are fleeting in nature, and it is unlikely that they would be seen near anything that could incur a dangerous situation.

Fractiles

Batlimore, by Sarah Scotland

Going along with a recent topic of art that is really too abstract to have meaning, I was reminded of fractiles. Fractiles are images that repeat off into infinity, becoming proportionally smaller over time and usually consist of a number of color themes and shapes. Fractiles tend to be almost hypnotic, and some have themes that  cause them to imitate certain things people see in real life. Should any readers of this post be interested, Sarah Scotland (artist who made these two fractiles) has links on her website regarding programs that can be used to make these spellbinding pieces.

  "Baltimore" almost looks like a long staircase, something out of a fancy building in a big city. The colors are both very rich in appearance and are not uncommon in higher-end buildings. "Incantio" makes me think of a quick flash  of deep inspiration or clarity, as the image appears to be almost window like due to the glare effects on the shapes that surround the descending circles. The idea of this emotion being quick is from the beams of light that appear to be connecting the ripples.

Incantio- http://infinitezoom.com/gallery8/baltimore.htm, by Sarah Scotland