Norton Simon Art Museum

I went to the Norton Simon Art Museum on February 12, 2011. It was my first time at this art museum. Usually when I go to an art museum I just kinda glance at the pictures, joke around with my friends, and then go home. So this time I thought I would do something new; I actually tried to analyze the pictures and really look at the deeper meaning. I really felt like I learned a lot about paintings. One of my "discoveries" was why men and women often hold one arm out during their portrait. Here is an example of such a picture. In this picture, the man is pointing towards his son representing that the focus of his life is his boy. I read that pointing the arm was a sign of devotion. Often times, there would be a picture of a man and a woman where they were both pointing one of their arms at each other. I thought that was really cool. The painted portraits of people weren't made to simply show a picture of their face. There is almost always a deeper meaning to the picture. I never really thought about that. Another observation I made (more of a question I pondered) was how in a lot of paintings often times the persons clothes and the things around the person are so bright and really come to life but the faces usually look kinda weird. Its as if everything around the face is stunningly realistic but then the faces sometimes look strange. Are they supposed to look that way? Or do the colors make them look funny?

St. Ignatius

St. Jerome

 One of the themes that came up a lot of the paintings were pertaining to the catholic faith. Lots of paintings were done about the saints (John the Baptist, Ignatius, Jerome etc.). So I thought I would take pictures next to two of these paintings and compare them. I found two pictures in the same room. One is about St. Ignatius and the other is a painting of St. Jerome. The picture of Ignatius portrays him as a glorified figure. He looks like a hero among the Christians. He is wearing brilliant robes and he is holding a book where the heading is: AD MAJOREM  De Gloriam which means "to the greater glory of God." In the picture of St. Jerome, he is shown out in the desert. He is there because he is spending time alone so he can study and pray while ridding himself of worldly desires. He is shown as a skinny, dirty, unhealthy looking man. The colors are very dark and he is wearing little clothing. The artist was showing the darkness that he was doing battle with. The darkness within himself. My question was, is Jerome less important or at a lower level than Ignatius? It seemed to appear that way. I thought these were very interesting because to me they showed examples of Christian men who were at different stages of their faith. For Ignatius, he was already in a glorified state. Jerome however seemed to be fighting to attain that same "glorification."

There was lots of other cool stuff at the museum. Lots of very interesting sculptures made in India and some of the surrounding nations. Lots of sculptures of Hindu goddesses. Many of them looked almost identical in nature. They all had very good craftsmanship. I took this picture of a sculpture of a lion. The lion was supposed to represent a guardian. When I took the picture I made sure to include the security guard in the background. It was like a pictures of "The Guards."

"The Guards"

There were many interesting pieces of art in the museum. I will admit that I did not completely understand many of the "newer" styles of art. The
abstract paintings were very appealing to the eye. They look really cool. Pictures that I would want to put up all over my house. However, I still do not understand the deep meaning behind such paintings. Perhaps I will understand better the next time I go to an art museum. Here are some more cool pictures that I took while I was there: