On my trip to the museum, I encountered many intriguing and captivating works of art including many valuable sculptures and displays. One work of art in particular, a digital print named the "Dance of Death" by Eleanor Antin which was created in 2007, caught my eye as being rhetorically interesting. This work of art was created completely using digital effects on the computer and had many underlinings and messages encoded within the images. This work of art has 3 x 3 images of death as the centerpiece of the work. The first row, is marked with death playing the drums, posing as a server and as a old man carrying a lantern. The second row is marked with death posing as a alchemist, as a woman carrying a infant child away and as a herder carrying a dead lamb. The third and final row, is marked with death as a angel playing a flute, as a warrior carrying a spear and the last image is of a old man carrying a tombstone above his head. This work of art was created in 2007 at the University of California, San Diego. The artist found the inspiration for this piece from the dark ages of the Medieval ages, from which most of the citizens during this period of history were dying of the plague and had very short life expectancies. This piece is definitely in conversation with this historical moment with death being the focal message of this piece. This piece is making a social comment by stating that death in inescapable and effects all ages from all spectres of society. However, the people of society can find death as a relief in hope that they are leaving this world filled with aggression and torment in order to gain access to a world of tranquility. This piece makes me feel curious but also relieved, for since I am a Christian, I find that death is just another step that every person must take in order to finally be at piece with oneself and find ultimate happiness. This artist has many sources of credibility. First, both of her parents were born and raised in communist Poland, but integrated to the United States in order to give their daughter a better life so, the artist has plenty of connections to the emotions of anguish and heartache but also to joy for what tomorrow might hold for any individual. Finally, the artist has created many similar works of art that worked around the idea of death, such as her painting entitled "Blood of a Poet's Box" in which the vision of a jar filled with the blood of a hundred dead poets can be seen. The claim that this piece is making is that in some form or shape, death will eventually devour us all but, death can be seen as a sign of relief ( which is illustrated by death posing as a angel), and also as a glimmer of hope and satisfaction for others (which is illustrated by death holding a lit beacon). After this trip, I can conclude that I am definitely a museum goer and that I can count on taking another trip to the museum, since it was only my first time, to look at and read more of the works of art more thoroughly. One of the reasons that I can expect myself to make a return visit is that the museum had many works of art from the early twenty century, and I find myself quite fascinated with the messages and themes that each artist developed into their works of art.
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