Godman And Audubon Analysis

Yes, we are able to find meaning in all works of art upon close looking, but it is when we situate works of art within the networks of social relations and historical conditions that gave shape to their meaning that we are able to understand them best. When we ask ourselves questions and take into consideration things such as when works of art were created, where they were created, who might have been looking at them and what exactly the purpose of their creation might have been, that is when we really start thinking critically about art and that is when we truly start becoming art historians. When we situate works of art within the networks of social relations and historical conditions that gave shape to their meaning they have the ability

The image portrays a group of young white children on their way to bury their bird. As Professor Kenneth Haltman claimed in his lecture, this image gives us insights into the social history of this time period. He explained that the children’s burial of their bird could be seen as a performance of piety and that the children themselves were performing as adults. The image also shows one way people were able to come to terms with death during this time period. The reading Haltman assigned titled A World Too Much: Democracy and Natural History in Godman and Audubon written by Alexander Nemerov further explains the idea that works of art can display the social history of a certain era. Nemerov argues in his writing that by examining John Godman’s book Rambles of a Naturalist of 1883 and Northern Mockingbird painted by John James Audubon in 1825, we are able to withdraw an idea about why society’s representation of nature changed during this time period. One conclusion Nemerov came to in his examination of these works of art was that some American artist of this era could have felt overwhelmed by the nature world, which showed in their

One example of a work of art being used to express political views can be seen in the oil painting The Founding of a Nation created by Dong Xiwen in 1953. As Robert Bailey discussed in his lecture titled Art in the State of China Today, this oil painting was used to express a political ideology or as mass propaganda. Another one of our guest lecturers Byron Price also discussed art acting as propaganda in his lecture titled Representing Manifest Destiny. Price claimed that many works of art depicting manifest destiny during the time it was happening were meant to sway the people’s opinion of it. One example he gave was the oil on canvas Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap created by George Caleb Bingham in 1851. In the reading Price assigned by Patricia Hill titled The Art-Union and the Ideology of an Empire, Hill also claims that Images of manifest destiny acted as advertisements of political beliefs and