Museum Essay #1

The Four Trees
Claude Monet, 1891
Painting

Khatchkar (Stone Cross)
Unknown artist, 1100-1200
Sculpture

The two works of art that I chose, The Four Trees by French artist Claude Monet and Khatchkar by an Armenian artist (name unknown), were made approximately 750 years apart. We can see a variety of differences in these two works. One example is that one is a painting, while the other is a stone carving-- a sculpture of sorts. Also, the sculpture was made to be monumental for religion, while the painting commemorates nature. I noticed that a lot of more modern works (from the 1800s and on) were less focused on religion than the pieces of artwork that were made more than 500 years ago. It seemed with all the artworks I viewed from different countries that around the earlier years of the world were created, people seemed to be more interested in gods and religion. I also saw some caveman works, which depicted simple drawings of humans and animals, but did not seem to incorporate religion, seeing as how religion was not invented yet and religion is man-made. But most things after that time seemed to include religion into much of the artwork. European works depicted Christianity/Catholicism mostly, while African artwork (specifically Egyptian) would make art to show their loyalty to Egyptian kings and other royalty, which can be viewed as a God, since royalty and gods are slightly similar in some regards. Britain and America also did this, in the more recent years, with portraits of royalty or presidents which are also similar in some regards. In the earlier years of Greece, people would make artwork of the Greek Gods. In India, people would make artwork of the Hindu deities. All over the world, in a certain time period, people would make artwork of their beliefs, but it has become less common in modern times. I chose these works because when I saw them I knew I liked them, I found myself not being able to stop staring at the incredible detail in Khatchkar. It made me wonder just how long it took to make it; certainly much longer than The Four Trees since that work has just been made with paint and not carved from stone. Although I found something strange, the nose on the face of Khatchkar  is broken down or withered. I noticed that many of the face sculptures in the museum had unusual noses, and I can only wonder why. I noticed it was only the noses, every other part of the face seemed fine. Viewing these works confirmed my hypothesis: older artworks focused more on religion and modern artworks focus more on nature or beauty. Monet could have easily painted a portrait of a French leader of the time and Khatchkar's artist could have carved a sculpture of a tree or something similar, but they chose not to. This might also have to do with the artists' mindset. They could have been creating a certain thing because other people were; say Monet painted trees because another artist of the time painted another aspect of nature, or Khatchkar's artist sculpted this because many other people of the time were also creating religious works. It is a possibility, but an improbable one since artists usually create what they want to and not because someone else did.