Newark Museum: “Picturing America”

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I visited the Newark Museum on Wednesday, April 20, 2005. I observed many pieces of art dealing with this paper, and also some that I reviewed for entertainment, which I found some to be quite humorous, such as the Campbell soup crates. The three questions I choose to discuss were number one: What do the objects and backgrounds in the following paintings tell us about people in the paintings?, number four: Briefly discuss the stage in the life span for each of the following photos., and number five: Discuss how the artists used color and/or light effects to enhance an impression or mood.
In the first painting dealing with question one, Oliver Tarbell Eddy’s, Portrait of the Four Youngest Children of William Rankin Senior, 1838, was set up in the painting to make everything look perfect. The children were dressed in their “Sunday” bests, the room they were in was in immaculate condition, with the beautiful rug, clear glass window allowing light to fill the room, and a table with a more causal hat sitting on top of it. I took from the painting that William Rankin Senior was wealthy by how he was able to dress his children and how he is able to afford decorating his house. The children’s faces and posture seem stiff and sad, almost as if there is a loss of innocence about them.
The second painting for number one, John George Brown’s, Telling the News, the man looks tired, but content with his life or just with that moment. I assumed from that painting that the man was a barber, there were scissors, a mirror, shaving cream of some sort. I could tell he was tired by his body almost laying in the rocking chair, and from the cane next to him against the wall. He is lounged out with his feet up, next to the window that is bringing in such a beautiful light. The man seems content with his paper, “The Vermont....” and there seems to be a slight gleam of joy coming from his eyes. The woman’s hat to his left signifies that there...