For my third cultural event I
decided to go visit the museum that I see every day, but have never visited:
The Getty. I wanted to go into the Getty and find a connection to our class
without writing the exact same thing as the Hammer museum. Both museums contain
works of art such as paintings and drawings, but one thing I noticed at the
Getty that I did not notice at the Hammer was photography.
The idea of the camera started in
the fifth century B.C. when Mo Ti, a chinese philosopher, created a pinhole in a
wall and when the light passed through the hole it would project an inverted
image of the outside on a dark wall inside. Initially this phenomenon was used
for observation purposes; that is until 1839 when the daguerreotype camera was
invented for commercial use. This is when the device was first used to capture
things such as landscapes and portraits.
Since then the use of the camera
has evolved immensely and has become an integral part of our lives. I ran
across an exhibit in the Getty, which caught my eye, and I was a little bit
confused when I saw the word photography on the wall with an arrow pointing to
an exhibit. I thought to myself, “How is it that people can capture the artwork
of Mother Nature on camera and call it their own?” So I walked into the
photography exhibit and was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. On the walls
were an assortment of pictures that captured everyday items, such as forks and
pencils. But what was different was the lighting and placement of items that
was captured in the photograph. These artists did not simply just take a
picture, but they positioned the items and changed the lighting in order to
convey a meaning other than simply, “a pencil on a table.” They also used the
distorting effects of water in their images to create interesting photos.
The invention of the camera was not
only technological marvel used for capturing images, but it was also a way for artists to
express themselves. I saw plenty of other paintings and sculptures at the
Getty, but for me this was the most interesting because its not something you
see every day and generally not the first thing you think of when I say “art.”
"Camera." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 June 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera>.
"Camera." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 June 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera>.
