A Day at the Norton Simon Museum Essay -- Norton Simon Museum Painting

A Day at the Norton Simon Museum It was the day of April 13, 2000. I woke up at exactly 12 o’clock because my boyfriend was to pick me up at 1 like we planned the night before. The day looked quite nice, but I was in a fowl mood. I got into a car accident the night before and had a huge argument with my parents about the car. I finally dragged myself into the shower and got ready in half an hour. Then I went downstairs, sat on my couch, and repeatedly told myself the day would hopefully turn out better than last night. At around 1:15, my boyfriend came to pick me up. We took the 5 freeway to the 57 since it was the only way I knew how to get there. As we approached the 134 freeway, my girlfriend veered to the right, taking the 210 which was wrong way and got us lost. So, we exited the freeway and got back on the right track. Then finally, before long, we reached Norton Simon. As we reach the museum, the exterior was very beautiful. The first things I saw were the bronze statues in the front. We took a couple of pictures in front of them and in front of the Norton Simon. The entrance where the glass doors had sat was very unique and elegant. The glass walls that the glass doors were attached to, added to the elegance and beauty. When I had first walked in, I was very shy, timid, and unwilling to go on, this was due to the more mature audience that I had seen when I had first entered the museum. I was still unsure on how to act in a museum, being this my first time, so I was very calm, cool and reserved, but as time went on I saw college students my age probably doing the same thing I was doing. So I then I felt more at ease. Plus my girlfriend was with me so I was not alone. We walked and walked looking at each art piece, which were all well displayed. Then as I looked at the back wall, a large oil canvas painting looked right back at me. I could feel its pain and so then, I decided to do my paper on this piece. The painting was The Ragpicker by Manet. (The Ragpicker. Edouard Manet.1865.Oil on canvas.) The painting was so enormous that it was hard to miss. Such a huge painting for one man, it almost looked life-like. The dimensions of this work is 76.75† x 51.25†. This scene seems to take place of a lower-class man late in his age, probably near his seventies, appears to be looking out of the corner of his eye. The ... ...the eye because the fabric of his shirt and the roughness of his jeans appear to have texture but they do not. If you actually touch the painting, you will find it to be flat and it does not have that feeling of thick application of paint. The painting has realistic 3 dimensional space by the use of linear perspective and chiaroscuro. It also looks to be 2 dimensional as well, because it almost looks like some influence on the Japanese print, like flat patches of paint. The lines converge from the edges of the paint to the center letting off the effect of a background and a foreground. It looks as though the trash is in the foreground and the man is in the background. In the back of the painting, it is darker which also adds to the effect of the 3 dimensional space. My first experience at the museum was a good one. I had so much fun even after we were done with the Norton-Simon. Being a business major, I did not know that art could speak to me as it did. It has not influenced me so much as to change my major, but it did open my eyes to a whole new world. Now when I look at art, I do not just see a pretty picture, but what the artist is actually trying to say.