Mother And Child Analysis

I emerged from Central Park to see an immense temple of art towering above me. As I walked up the massive stone steps, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the building and how small I was in comparison. A wave of clarity washed over me creating a sense that I was about to witness something larger than myself. Once I walked inside, I stared up to the large vaulted ceilings and to the long corridors full of masses of people admiring the history in front of their eyes. There is an all-encompassing sense of cultural importance standing in the lobby. The value of what I was about to experience was global and proven in the many languages available for tours. During my exploration, I discovered three similar …show more content…
In the Mother and Child, the figures are rigid. Strong verticals and horizontals give the statue the appearance of stability. The mother’s stiff, upright position and her baby parallel to her torso are examples of verticals in the sculpture. The horizontals of her lap, at approximately a ninety degree angle to her back, when combined with the strong verticals previously discussed, the pair is made stable. Dionysos Leaning on an Archaistic Female Figure uses strong verticals and horizontals to evoke a sense of strength and stability. In the painting, The Great Sirens, the verticals and horizontals of the structures and sirens give stability to the mystical painting. The stability balances the subordination in the center of the painting, with the emphasis in the …show more content…
Each artwork has different content ideas and values of women. In Dionysos Leaning on an Archaistic Female Figure, the woman is lesser than Dionysos. The female figure is even smaller in scale compared to Dionysos. She even lacks a name. The female figure is cloaked by the drapery physically hiding her and making less of her visible. The woman is only seen useful in the support of Dioynos’s arm. The Mother and Child sculpture highlights the miracle of life and importance of fertility. In The Mother and Child, women are valued greatly which is seen through the use hierarchical scale and manipulation of proportions. The mother figure is essential and vital to life, shown in the child. The Great Sirens displays a woman’s sexual sensual and seductive qualities. The Great Sirens depicts nude women and creates an erotic scene, emphasizing the sexual aspects of the women’s bodies. Women are viewed three different ways in each work, but they are essential for each of them to exist. The value of women ranges from lesser than men to all important and vital to life itself to pure sexual desire.
At first glance, it is difficult to find something in common between a marble Roman sculpture, a wooden African sculpture, and a Belgian oil painting. They are more alike than they appear. With a closer look, all three pieces are similar in several ways. The similarities are in scale and proportion, verticals and horizontals, drapery and clothing,