Throughout my life, I have always been drawn to visual art, whether it is paintings, sketches, or graphic design. Art is and always has been very important to me. Growing up I would draw as a form of self-expression, and I still do, but it’s also a way for me to de-stress from school or work. As well, visual art has always been an important device and medium that has helped me understand the thoughts and feelings of others. Whenever I see a visual piece of art I am drawn to, I analyze the style the artist uses, the colors, shapes, and the overall image. This communicates its message to me, and different styles can convey messages in different ways. Studying and creating art encourages people to think in a different way, whether it be more detail-oriented thinking, looking at things in parts to process a whole, or thinking in a completely unique way. This is another reason why art is very important to me, it has shaped the way I think, and therefore has shaped the way I see the world.

 

ARTE 101 is a Carolina Core class that most freshmen are required to take when they come to the University of South Carolina. The class is a great introduction into the world of visual art, as it teaches about different artistic movements throughout history, different styles, different ways of painting, and introduces famous Western artists with their most famous pieces. Some topics that I have taken away from the class was that of different styles of art. Some of the styles I found interesting was that of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Surrealism. Impressionism was a style of movement in France in the 1860’s that focused on the expression of feelings and experiences in life, and wasn’t particularly concerned with the accuracy of the anatomy of the images they presented; some of the most famous impressionist artists were Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. Post-Impressionism strayed in style from that of Impressionism to explore more structured concepts, such as line and form, instead of nature; one of the most famous painters we studied was Vincent Van Gogh. Surrealism was the international movement of visual arts that incorporated the thoughts and creations of the subconscious mind; a very famous surrealist artist was Salvador Dali whose work is recognized all over the world.

 

One critique that I have about the class is throughout the duration of the class, Eastern art was not taught. I found value in learning about Western art freshman year, however, growing up, I have always been familiar with Western visual art. Until I studied abroad, I had not been exposed to Eastern styles of art or famous artists in the East. If Eastern art was covered in ARTE 101, I believe this would have made the class more intriguing because it is much more foreign than what most students are used to. An education including art from the East would help students gain a more holistic view of the world and help them connect the dots of culture and history. Below you can find some of my notes for ARTE 101.

 

My study abroad experience changed my outlook and expanded my world of visual art. Studying abroad was a great learning experience for me, personally and professionally. I visited many museums, art galleries, and places that hold murals or famous pieces of artistry. It made me appreciate art and nature a great deal more than I ever had before visiting foreign countries. One of the things that I enjoyed was the fact that I could enter a number of museums for free because I was a student. I visited art museums and galleries in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Japan. One of the first galleries I visited was in Hong Kong, it was a free exhibition in Tsim Sha Tsui. This gallery held many scrolls that had hand-painted scrolls with carefully crafted Chinese characters, beautiful landscapes, colorful flowers and characters that told of Chinese stories. In Malaysia, I went to the National Art Gallery which held pieces of all kinds of artwork, from photographs to etchings, to rugs with portraits of Malaysian citizens woven into them, to interactive displays that taught the visitor of the history and culture of Malaysia. In Japan, I visited a contemporary art museum that held statues made of many kinds of materials, abstract paintings, and photography depicting nature. Although I visited numerous places displaying Eastern art, I know I only scratched the surface of what Asian countries provide as far as the art it has. Below you can find pictures of galleries I have visited on my study abroad.

 

Some types of styles are depicted throughout the world, like realism and abstraction, however, from my first-hand observation the styles of the East and West are vastly different. For instance, traditional Chinese art used scrolls as mediums to hold paint and ink as opposed to canvases used in the West. Often in history in Western cultures, painters would be commissioned to create pieces for wealthy families, and this is how they made their living. Artists in the West also created artwork to express themselves, and most of the subjects would be people in wealthy families, people depicting everyday life, landscapes, and other themes. This differs from Eastern cultures. In Asia, history and the ways of the world were told through art. Scholars were brought up and taught to document the world around them and painting on scrolls was a discipline to be taken seriously as a way to spread thought and knowledge. This style was passed down from generation to generation and eventually evolved into capturing nature, and the way of life on these scrolls. In Western art, there are some paintings that depict mythology and history, but in the East, this is much more relevant. They codified much of their history through visual art. In this way, art can be used in many ways, as a form of self-expression, as a way to make a living, to document the world, to tell stories and many more. Different styles around the world show me how people think across different cultures. When people are raised differently, they will see the world a different way, leading them to think differently, and therefore will express themselves differently through visuals.

 

My experience with ARTE 101 and exploring Eastern art transformed me in several different ways. ARTE 101 has helped me understand the visual art world of the West through different movements and styles. It has helped me create a launching point of starting to understand different movements and styles of the world and why they came about. This has set me up to start to deeply analyze different pieces of art beyond appreciating the pieces for their aesthetic value. Studying abroad has helped me have a more complete view of how people create around the world. My experiences throughout Asia has helped me explore the history and the different stories of multiple peoples on the other side of the world. These experiences have inspired and continue to inspire the art that I create, and this is important to me because these experiences have given me tools for more varied forms of self-expression. In the future, I can take what I have learned to appreciate and truly understand creative processes around the world, because art not only reflects culture and history, but reflects how people think.