Portland Art Museum Essay

I visited the Portland Art Museum of Thursday the 22nd. RIght away, I noticed the architecture of the building. Primarily how the sections of the museum were very orderly, separated. It allowed me to be able to walk through each of the sections and look at almost all the of the art without getting lost. So, that is what I did. I started in the Early Chinese Art section. The first piece of art that stood out to me was named simply Tortoise. The sculpture used flowing, curved lines to create a stylised version of a real tortoise. While the sculpture may be light brown now, according to the information card under the artwork, it used to be primarily bright green by use of calcified green lead glaze. This shade of green would have been close to

The artwork that stood out to me the most in the Japanese Art section was the Wall Series No.6 by Kawakami Rikizō. The artist used very straight lines to create a very dense looking block of clay. He used diagonal lines to emphasize perspective in the staircase. Depending on where the light is hitting the sculpture, the staircase may seem to be leading into the unknown if the ending of the staircase is dark or it may seem to be leading to an escape or salvation if the ending of the staircase is light. The dark brown color clay and glaze might have been used to add to the aspect of looking very solid. Rikizō used a repeating pattern on the staircase in order to make a sort of optical illusion that tricks the eye into thinking that the staircase goes on much longer and is much bigger than it actually is. The shape of the solid block might, as well, add to the aspect of looking very solid. Rikizō’s use of perspective in this piece is really what caught my eye right away. His calculated use of many formal aspects created an almost perfect illusion that the staircase is more than what it really is. I think that the meaning of this piece is that the seemingly long staircase is a pathway that might seem very difficult but is actually short if you put your mind to it. That pathway might be the pathway of getting through something or making it somewhere in life. The unavoidable and possibly overwhelm difficulties