Alexa Karpenske Period 4

The San Diego Museum of Art is the region’s oldest, largest and most visited art museum. It provides a rich and diverse cultural experience for almost 250,000 visitors annually. It is located in the heart of Balboa Park, the Museum’s nationally renowned permanent collection includes Spanish and Italian old masters, South Asian paintings, and 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and sculptures.

The San Diego Museum of Art's Permanent Collection reveals a gradual movement away from European traditions in painting toward the formulation of a uniquely American art, redefining man’s relationship to his surroundings. It has paintings of landscapes that depict the country’s untamed wilderness and how powerful and vulnerable nature is with humans around. It also has introspective portraits, humanistic works and work by abstract expressionists. Jules Tavernier, Kilauea Caldera, Sandwich Islands. Oil on canvas, 1969 Mary Cassatt, Simone in a Blue Bonnet (No.1). Oil on canvas, ca Roy Lichtenstein, Haystack #4. Lithograph and screenprint, 1969

This carved quartzite sculpture was purchased by the Museum in 1949 and was displayed here for four decades. The statue shows the pharaoh in the classic striding pose and wearing the typical pleated linen kilt and a striped, folded head cloth. His name and royal titles are inscribed in hieroglyphs on his belt buckle and on the supporting back pillar: “Ramesses, beloved of Amun…The Victorious Bull…King of Upper and Lower Egypt…The son of Ra...” Ramesses II, known as “Ramesses the Great,” ruled Egypt for 67 years ( BCE) and was responsible for an extensive building program which remade the face of Egypt and included numerous temples at sites like Luxor, Karnak, Abydos, Thebes, and others. Ramesses II (front detail). Egypt, BC, Quartzite. Ramesses II (side detail). Egypt, BC, Quartzite. Ramesses II (back detail). Egypt, BC, Quartzite.

Nagle has honed his approach to color and form. With an architect’s attention to detail and a graffiti writer’s irreverence, he has crafted his quintessentially Californian aesthetic. Sunset chromatic contrasts and linoleum-like splatters envelope vaguely Deco vessels, while everyday forms acquire multiple meanings, wrapped in riddles and puns. Ron Nagle, Centaur of Attention, Ron Nagle, Trick Tracy, 1998.

I liked this museum because it had art exhibitions that were different from ones that you usually see. The art works were very interesting and it didn’t have an overwhelming amount of exhibitions and artworks. It was also very detailed when explaining the artworks and what they represented. I have been to this museum but have not seen the exhibitions I wrote about today so I would like to go again.