Prompt 2 "One Big Story"


According to Foster, there is “One Story. Everywhere. Always” (Foster 194), no matter the medium. Whether it is a book, painting, or song there is a singular idea, theme, or meaning, connecting each piece of art.  In April of 2016, I attended an art competition for local high school students. In the exhibit, there was a particular piece that seemed to draw every guest’s attention. It was a portrait of Donald Trump, painted in the same dramatic fashion as King Louis XIV of France. The painting was praised by judges for its creative charm and execution. Later that year, I went to another competition where yet again the piece gained recognition.  After reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I realized, during the two exhibits I never once considered the artist who painted Louis XIV. I saw the Donald Trump piece as an original idea;  a unique work everyone seemed to enjoy, but in reality, just like every other painting, sculpture, photograph, and drawing in the exhibit, the artist was inspired by another.
 It is interesting to think how humans who lived hundreds of years ago continue to be relevant among today’s artists and audiences. If there really is “nothing new under the sun”, this must include human nature, opinions, characteristics, and morals.  I have always been told we study history so mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future. In certain situations I agree with this concept, however, more often than not I think we study and analyze older works in order to understand the world around us.

Mary Madeline Gould

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 26, 2017 at 10:12 AM

    I love what you said about studying our history in order to understand the world we live in now, and I definitely agree. We continuously find ourselves repeating mistakes we have made before, whether on a personal level or on a broader and more political scale. So this idea that we learn from our mistakes usually does not hold true, but we can, however, use our past experiences with the same problems to be able to handle them in a better way than we may have before. The same method of understanding our history and our present can be applied to literature and art, as you have shown in your example of the painting of Donald Trump. Because we have these older works of media, we are able to more quickly identify themes and patterns and understand deeper messages, which as you stated, is the most interesting part of how we use works of art from throughout history.

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  2. UnknownJuly 29, 2017 at 9:22 PM

    It interesting how the artist drew their inspiration for a Donald Trump portrait from a Louis XIV portrait; I am curious as to if there is some underlying meaning there. When you assumed that the portrait was an original, I think you made a mistake that most if not all of us would make before reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In reality, there are no original works. There are no inventions, only innovations. I think that is why we look at our history, not to see the world around us, but to see what we had right and attempt to isolate it. We cannot invent a new human nature; however, we can alter it for the better.

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  3. UnknownJuly 31, 2017 at 7:43 PM

    I love how you were able to connect this prompt to art that you were able to connect with the art around you. There is no original work in literature or any of the other art forms connected with them. As Mary said, "we study and analyze older works in order to understand the world around us." That is very true but within those older works we have to differentiate what makes the newer works different but still successful from the original. It is amazing what can be born from one piece of art, how a painting can be born from a sculpture, a book can be born from a painting, and vice versa. Art is created within other art forms and they are all connected by their creators.

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