Class was held at an art museum last week.

Last week I spent one of my mornings wandering slowly around the Palmer Museum of Art. My purpose  there was to look at all the different works and settle on one that caught my eye. I will tell you how and why I chose the piece I am writing about, and I'll try to give you a good feel for how the whole experience was.

*Feel free to comment if you have something to add or if you have a criticism.

    The first thing I noticed about the museum is that the lighting was different every room (isn't that a weird thing to notice?). It was pretty crowded with fellow students. On the stairway to the second level, sunlight shined through blue colored and put blue images on the floor and whomever walked by it. I was mostly silent  with quiet chatter here and there. Upstairs, a woman was discussing some of the pieces to a small, seated audience. The work that's displayed there is great. I kept stopping to take pictures. Eventually, I found something that kept pulling my eye back to it. In the museum, there is a section full of old Chinese porcelain. One vase in particular, caught my eye. A vase.

I found a gap in the protective glass to take a picture through. 

This vase has no attributed artists, or even a specific origin. Here is the notation on the wall next to it:

It reads: 

Artist unknown

Chinese, Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

Vase, Qianlong period (1736-17-96)

Porcelain with black underglaze

Gift of Ralph C. Marcove

    

What drew me to the vase, was its lack of gloss and color. All of the porcelain around it had color, shine and even gold accents in some. The vase is about six inches high and made of white porcelain. Very fine lines and geometry encircle the top and bottom of the body, while pointed arches adorn the throat of the vase. The main feature of the vase is the intricately designed dragon in a serpentine pose among clouds and smoke. The only color used is black. Its white seemed whiter with out the glossy shine, so it contrasted with the other surrounding pieces that way too.

I like the stark contrast of it. A bright, white vase with a dragon done in a very dark black.  Dragons are pretty synonymous with divine forces throughout Chinese culture, so this vase is something to be appreciated as art, but also carries with it a revered image. It's pretty old, but not exactly ancient. I try to imagine how it must have been to learn this craft. That really played into its appeal to me.

With the aid of museum display, the vase conveys a message of divine reverence and violent power. I doubt I would feel the same way about seeing that same image on a poster or tee-shirt today. Being on porcelain and being surrounded by similar porcelain helps give a sense of authenticity. By that, I mean that the artist had a connection with the art and style and content. Its age and ethereal origins keep us from understanding more of that.

This one piece is a part of a larger collection that was given to the museum by Ralph C. Marcove. It resides as part of the Palmer Museum's permanent collection. This adds credibility to it as art. For a piece like this, 

being a part of a professional collection or a gallery is a good way for legitimacy to be established. We don't have an artist to reference, so we have to rely on the opinions of professionals for that.