Ganesha: An Asian tale about a young boy guarding his mother, Parvati, as she bathed in the river. Shiva, his father, came home drunk and did not recognize his son and cut off his head. The mother was furious and demanded a replacement for her son's head. Shiva saw an elephant walking by and cut its head off to put on his son's body. Ganesha is a Hindu god loved by his followers who worship him because he removes obstacles and is at times called "The Playful Protector."
The Virgin of Valvanera: A large Mexican oil painting from the 1700's. A thief had a dream that he was to visit the parish priest and go into the forest and look for a huge oak tree. He went and found the priest and together they went into the woods until they found the oak tree. An image of Our Blessed Mother was inside the tree and a chapel was built near the tree. Valvanera is in Spain but somehow, in Mexico people knew about the Image in a tree.
One display was the Stampede: Animals in Art which showed paintings with pets. I enjoyed looking at the dog photographs on one wall. Every day pets in black and white with some in color. My favorite was Dog Barking at Two Women. The media was hemp with rolled newspaper and paint, which made it look like a wool rug.
A Mystic Dinner by Gaspar Munoz de Salazar, 1730, shows Jesus Christ feeding St. Peter of Alcantara. Mexican colonial painters usually do not have pets in their pictures. This one shows a dog and a cat waiting for scraps.
A fun area by artist Jaime Molina had some neat wooden blocks, chairs, and a house with huge round windows. A wall mural was interesting and I tried to take a selfie with it behind me but it didn't come out right! I read a blurb that the artist combined his sculptural work and mural techniques because he was fascinated by how children experience life with discovery and imagination. I noticed children enjoyed being in the area and sitting in a large chair that looked like a hand and entering the play house that looked like a face.
Modernism in the American West: Artists applied European ideas to American subjects. The explanation next to the area explained it better than I ever could: "Modernism can be defined as a shift away from the established artistic tradition or realistic representation toward more experimental depictions of modern life."
The last picture took me awhile to figure out and what a surprise I got when I found out it was a Georgia O'Keeffe painting! It's a cow eating! Another picture is a take off of The Whistler's Mother and has a lot of southwestern items in the picture.
Imagine! This area was weird, funny, interesting and full of artist's imaginations! Some artist like to give human like qualities to animals.
This was a movie of a singing fish. It swam around like a fish in the ocean until it got to the microphone and then her human, red lips opened up to sing.
One of my favorite canvases was cattle in a snow field. So striking and yet so simple!
"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,
and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen"
Leonardo da Vinci
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