Yale Art Gallery

So here is the photo shop version of this class for me! lol As you can see, this is my visit to the Yale Art Gallery. I happened to venture out on family day, which was quite hectic!! It was a cool and windy day out and parking was absolutely awful! The museum itself was, nonetheless, interesting with many things I never would have thought to find at an art gallery. I was disappointed some of the galleries were blocked off due to renovation, but it was still all the while interesting.

My first experience in the gallery, was in the African room. You can truly get a sense of culture from this room. May African pieces of art, and not only art, but artifacts. This is a carved ivory tusk that was produced by the Kongo people. It was also used by neighboring peoples and used for trade with the Europeans. There are scenes on the tusk that depicts life and nature. The piece itself is absolutely breathtaking. Different scenes that are depicted are a European man with a top hat and cane, with a woman who is carrying an umbrella. Another scene is an African woman carrying a container. There are so many scenes on here. Since Elephants were killed only for their ivory tusks and teeth, and at one point was such a highly traded item, the Elephant became close to extinction. The title of this piece is called "Tusk Carved in Relief", it is from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. This close up shows the amount of work and detail that went into the creation of this work of art. This piece is about 3 ft in height.

From the African portion of the gallery, I moved on to the Asian room. It is by Lan Ying, from the Chinese and is from the time period of 1633. It is called the "Autumn Landscape". It takes its influence from the Ming dynasty which took place from 1368-1644. This scroll is ink and color on silk. It is a very beautiful piece that has many colors. Its amazing vibrant. This piece is about 7-8 feet tall and is very detailed. The signature from the painter is "Recluse of West Lake." This quote refers for Ying's native home land of Hangzhou, which is a city in the province of Zhejiang. This city in the beginning of and mind blowing to think that this piece of art has survived for this long and is still the Ming dynasty, was associated with professional painters. Ying also had influence from a past painters and put the past styles and artists and notes in his inscriptions is also from Jing Hao.


From the Asian portion of the art gallery, I continued my journey to the Early European arts. I came across a painting that I kind of thought was a little comical. This painting is about 3ft by 4ft. The artist is Jean-Leon Gerome. He is a French painter who lived from 1824-1904. The size of the painting helped to depict all of the detail that was going on in the picture and allowed you to get a sense of what something like this would have been like. The title for the painting is "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant" Translated to English means, Hail Caesar! We Who Are About to Die Salute You! and what a strong phrase to have said. The attitude of this painting is definitely a one of heroism. The Roman Gladiators of these times would battle to death for survival . The essence of light in this painting is shown over a body whose life has expired. Though the detail in my pictures are not as great as real life, the dead men are being dragged by a sort of "string" that is attacked to an "anchor" which is hooked inside their body, and are dragged to their final resting place. This painting is an oil on canvas. This painting is to narrate a story that took place so many years ago. The painters choice to choose such a subject to paint is his own personal obsession.


The Yale Art Gallery experience is one different from that of any other museum that I have visited. This could be because it is not a museum, but an art gallery! lol I enjoyed the different pieces of art that the gallery had to offer. I really enjoyed seeing works of art, that did not include just paintings, from different cultures.