Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
BOys in A Boat . Time for some Summer fUn. LEt’s. Go Swimming g.
Four boys are in the first boat, wearing hats. Two boys are rowing, each has one oar. One boy in the second boat, no hat, I cannot see any oars. One of the boys in the first boat is kind of scrunched down and looking at me. Big sailing ships in the distance.
Where is the sun? I cannot tell.
This is a lovely and relaxed picture. I agree with Afua, where is the sun? Perhaps the day is overcast.
It seems that all or almost all the boats are moving from the left side of the screen to the right. They are all headed in the same direction. T he only one I am not sure about is the one in the far back. If the painter worked any slower the boats might have moved to the right and left left the picture entirely !!!
this reminds me of the fact that when you are rowing a boat you can’t see where you are going, because your back is facing forward
You changed the questions slightly. I’ll try to answer each one.
– What is going on in this picture? In the foreground four boys are traveling in an open, long rowboat. The back of the boat is not in the picture so there could be more people in it. Two of the boys are rowing. One boy is sitting on the bow and his feet are hanging down outside the boat. The four boys are wearing hats and we can see the face of only one boy as the hat brims rather obscure the faces of the other three. Behind this first boat is a second boat, traveling in the same direction, with just one boy rowing. Again the back of the boat is not in the picture so there could be additional people. And it looks like the boy is rowing, but if he is his oar is on the side of the boat away from the viewer.
….What do you see that makes you say that? This is a difficult question! If you were here with me I’d point here, here, here….
…….What more can you find? Three big sailing boats in the background. Ripples on the water. Grey sky.
The hill in the background has gray spots in it that match the color of the sails on the boats. The gray sails are darker for the most part than the gray sky above. The general sense of lines in the picture is horizontal (horizon, the land mass in the background,
the two row boats, the ripples in the water) but there are vertical lines (the masts, the boy sitting erect in the front of the boat) and two oblique lines (the oars).