Steve McCurry's Familiar Faces

Afghan Girl, near Peshawar, Pakistan, 1984
http://www.pdngallery.com/legends/mccurry/template.html

Steve McCurry’s life and career changed when he traveled around Afghanistan in the 1980s while the Soviet/ Afghan war was going on. He has spent the rest of his life to date photographing Southeast Asia, and other areas of the world, to teach people about how others live. His photographs show that all people are very much alike and his portraits demonstrate that a person’s life and character are revealed on their face. A face shows what someone has experienced in their lifetime and how they have responded to it. Steve McCurry is inspired by his subjects and his goal is to educate people about how others live, improve the lives of his subjects, and to show how similar we all are. He successfully accomplishes this through his photographs.

To research this thesis, I used several different techniques. First, I found interviews with Steve McCurry that gave me an insight into how he feels about his work and what he tries to do with his photographs. Next, I looked at what other people have written about him and read their analyses of his life and his art. Finally, I examined McCurry’s pictures and made up my own mind about what they are trying to accomplish.

Steve McCurry tries to form a connection with all of his subjects which is something that sets him apart from many other photographers. This causes him to portray his subjects in a very respectful and compassionate way. He is inspired by the people he takes pictures of and wants to educate others about them. He also wants his pictures to be artistically interesting. Besides helping his subjects through his portraits, McCurry has created a foundation, ImagineAsia that helps provide education and healthcare to people in rural Asian villages.

Steve McCurry’s photographs illustrate three important things- people are all very much alike, our lives are displayed on our faces, and our characters can be seen by looking at our faces. No matter where someone lives, they feel the same emotions and fundamentally experience the same things. Everyone feels happy and sad, calm and frustrated, angry and sympathetic. We all make the same facial expressions to communicate these feelings. People everywhere experience humor, happiness, and tragedy, admittedly in different degrees.

While people from different areas of the globe are very much the same, they can lead extremely different lives. This is often reflected by their faces in the form of wrinkles, sunburns, wounds, and scars. Also, the ways that people respond to their experiences is different and is shown in their faces through their eyes, facial expressions, and smile or frown lines. People can react with humor, happiness, and dignity, allowing the trials in their lives to make them stronger or they can become hard, angry, and defiant, letting their lives break them down. I think that McCurry’s images effectively show how similar people are and successfully reveal people’s lives and characters through their faces.

Prompts
• Was there anything in the presentation that was not clear? Anything that you would like to see addressed?
• Do you agree with me in saying that a person’s life and character can be seen on someone’s face? Why or why not? Are McCurry’s images effective in showing this?
• Look through some of Steve McCurry’s portraits and pick one that stands out to you. (Go to McCurry’s website: http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php, click on “Galleries” on the right, then click on “Portraits” under the picture of a girl with a yellow shawl). Analyze the subject of the picture and describe what kind of life you think they have and who they are. Does Steve McCurry accomplish his goals of being educational and artistic? Can you find similarities between yourself and the subject? Explain.

Olympia' Look

Olympia’s Look was an intriguing story that gave me insight into Édouard Manet’s life and the women involved with him. Suzanne Manet, Edouard’s wife who was the protagonist in this story, was an interesting woman. She seemed talented, devoted, angry, jealous and strong. She was very good at playing the piano and extremely devoted to her husband. However, she was jealous of the models he painted and blamed them for his syphilis. Suzanne Manet was a strong person even if she did not stand up for herself very much.

There were many passages throughout the story that showed Suzanne Manet’s personality, but there were two that especially I liked and I thought really revealed her character. The first is about three-fourths of the way down page 73. This passage shows that she was jealous of the models and the attention that Édouard Manet paid them and she was angry that he was writing letters to Isabelle Lemonnier. It also demonstrates that she was very jealous of Victorine Meurent in Olympia’s Look because she has character traits that Suzanne Manet does not. For example, in this passage, Suzanne Manet tries to be commanding to get the letter from Hélène. She mentions that Victorine Meurent looks very commanding which is something that she is envious of.

Another interesting passage was on the top of page 80. This shows Suzanne Manet’s anger towards Édouard Manet’s models whom she blames for his syphilis. This means that she blames them for his death. It is interesting that she is angrier at the models than at her husband. I would guess that this is because she really loved Édouard Manet and did not want to be mad at him especially since he had just died.
I think that Suzanne Manet exerts free will in this story even though she is going through tough times. She can choose how she reacts to what happens to her and in this horrible event of her husband’s death, she is choosing to improve herself. I get the feeling that Suzanne Manet will start to stand up for herself in the future and live her life for herself rather than for her husband.

Some of the names in Olympia’s Look confused me because Susan Vreeland did not explain who they were. I wanted to know who Edgar Degas was because it sounds like he did not appreciate Édouard Manet and could have given him a hard time with his art. I also did not know who the other painters that Vreeland mentioned on pages 78 to 79 were. I wonder how they influenced him and his art. Additionally, I did not know who Claude was and how he related to the Manets. Édouard Manet really seemed to not like him. Was he another artist or maybe a brother? I wonder what he did to make Édouard Manet dislike him so much. Overall, besides these confusions, this short story was very interesting and helped me learn about Édouard Manet’s art and life and his wife Suzanne.

Alice Neel Annotated Bibliography

http://www.uam.ucsb.edu/Pages/last.html


The Art of Alice Neel. 6 September 2008. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc. 3 February 2009.

This website talks about an exhibition of Alice Neel’s work that was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art from June to September of 2000. It explains the exhibition, gives some background on Alice Neel’s life, and gives a few details about some of her portraits. This source seems very reliable and also rather current. This website told me a little about Last Sickness. It turns out that this portrait is of Alice Neel’s mother during the last few months of her life. It was more helpful in terms of giving information about Alice Neel’s life and style. I learned that she had a very hard life. She was born in 1900 in a town outside of Philadelphia and got married in 1925. Her first daughter died and soon after she gave birth to another daughter. She then got divorced, separated from her daughter, had a nervous breakdown, tried to commit suicide, and had her paintings destroyed by a lover. She then moved to Spanish Harlem and raised two sons.

Kinships: Alice Neel Looks at the Family. The University Art Museum. 3 February 2009.

This website covers an exhibition that was on display at the Tacoma Art Museum in 1997. This display is called “Kinships: Alice Neel Looks at the Family” and focuses on paintings that have to do with family. Last Sickness was included in this display and the website gives some information about the artist and about the painting. This is a reliable website because it was made by the University Art Museum of the University of California at Santa Barbara and universities are generally reliable sources. I learned that Alice Neel’s mother came to live with her in 1953 and died the next year. The portrait was painted in 1953. This website also brings up something that Mrs. Neel said to Alice when she was a child, “I don't know what you expect to do in the world. You're only a girl.” It then goes on to say that Mrs. Neel felt very frustrated at not being able to do something with herself.

Lane, Jim. Alice Neel. CyberPathway’s Art World. 3 February 2009.

Jim Lane addresses Alice Neel’s life and work on this website. He talks again about Neel’s hard life and then analyzes a few of her paintings including Last Sickness and Andy Warhol. I trust this website because the facts it presents matches with facts from other websites. The author knows a lot about art and taught elementary, high school, and college art for 26 years. He has also “run a portrait business out of his home.” The author mentions Alice Neel’s honesty especially in Last Sickness. He says that it portrays frailty and beauty and is “intimate without being sentimental.” This website did not have very much new information about Alice Neel or Last Sickness but was a good overview of her life and a few of her works.

Children of the Screen

Hannah Baylon talks about how we are children of the screen which means that we adapt to all the media that surrounds us. When I really think about it, I am definitely a child of the screen, although not as much of one as some are. I have been affected by media in negative ways but I can also see good things about the amount of media that is available to us.

I don’t watch much T.V., but I do watch quite a few movies and am on my computer a lot. This influences me and changes my thinking without me even realizing it. For example, little girls (including myself) get ideas from Disney movies and other media that are not healthy and simply not true. I thought for a long time that everything in my life would be perfect when I got married. Disney movies show helpless princesses in trouble who then get married and everything in their lives is fixed. Many girls buy into this idea and make it their entire goal to get married. Some women are even surprised when they find out that marriage is not perfect and easy and doesn’t fix everything in their life.

People often get desensitized to violence and other things in the media. I am not like this; I get upset when I see disturbing and sad things on T.V. or in movies. I think this is partly because of who I am, but also because of my parents’ views on T.V. When I was little, I did not watch much T.V. We only got cable when the Olympics were happening and then we would get rid of it as soon as they were over. This not only kept me from seeing things on T.V. that little kids shouldn’t, but my siblings and I were forced to find other ways to amuse ourselves. We played board games, read books, and used our imagination to have fun. I really think that this helped develop my mind and creativity.

Although there are obviously many detriments to the media that we are surrounded with, there are some benefits. We are aware of things that go on in the world that we would have no knowledge of without the media. It is also really nice to be able to communicate so easily with people far away. I like being able to talk to my family and friends on my cell phone or with the web cam on my computer. It is much easier to stay in touch with people than before there was so many “screens.”

It is impossible to argue that media does not have an influence on us, but I think that some people are more influenced by it than others. While there are many negative things about the media, there are also some positive results, too. Media is very prevalent in our society so it is great to analyze how it affects us personally and as a society.

Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a film that tells the story of Dorian Gray, a man whose portrait reveals all his sins while he never seems to age. In the beginning of the film, Gray’s friend paints a portrait of him and he wishes that he could always look the same while the portrait changed. This is precisely what happens in the rest of the film. Gray does some horrible things which show up on the portrait, especially on the face, whereas in most people, it would have shown up in their actual face. The portrait ends up looking hideous and extremely disturbing while Gray still looks like he is about twenty years old. I think that the message is that people should not just live for pleasure like Gray and Lord Henry Wotton but that they should try to live purely and do good things.

One of the scenes that I really like and that I think is very important to the movie is the scene when Dorian Gray first takes the painting to his old schoolroom to hide it from other people. This takes place near the middle of the movie. One of the most interesting things in this scene is the contrast between the innocence of the schoolroom and the horrible sins that the portrait shows. All around the room are things that belonged to Gray’s innocent childhood such as toys and books, but in the middle of the room is the ugly painting. The narrator talks about the “stainless purity” of his youth, shown by the schoolroom, which will now change into the very stained and sinful life, revealed by the portrait, that he leads from this point on.

Also, on the wall is a mask that is grimacing. All the masks and sculptures around the house have these same types of expressions which I think help reveal Gray’s horrible soul. Another small detail that has significance is how Dorian Gray kicks over a toy horse and rider as he walks across the room to the painting. This shows how Gray is completely leaving his pure childhood behind and becoming someone horrendous. This horse stays on the ground for years until Gray comes back to stab the painting and start doing good things. He picks the horse up which shows his desire to try to make things right in his life.

One more thing that is really important in this scene is the knife on the table. By the end of the movie, this knife goes through four hearts. Gray stabs it in the heart on the table and later uses it to kill Basil Hallward. Eventually, he puts it through the heart on the painting which also goes through his own heart and kills him. All of these details make this scene one that is very important to the message of the film because it shows that people should be good and pure like a child rather than sinful and self-serving like Dorian Gray.

Who is that Person?

The portrait that I am writing about is number four. The woman’s face, details in the painting and the colors of the portrait tell us about her personality and her life. First, the subject’s face reveals a lot about her. Her face shows us that she is an elderly woman and her mouth, eyebrows and eyes show that she is afraid of something. I wonder if she is afraid of death or if maybe she has just been told that she is going to be put in a nursing home. Also, her hair is very unkempt and it looks like she doesn’t take very good care of herself. I get the feeling that her life is rather sad and lonely. However, she seems to have smile lines around her mouth so I don’t think that she has always been that way.

Second, the details in the painting bring more understanding to the interpretation of the subject. The woman is wearing a bathrobe which shows that she can’t get dressed or that she is just too depressed to start the day. There is also something that looks like a wedding ring on her finger. I wonder if she had a husband and he has died and now she feels extremely lonely. It also looks like she is in a rocking chair which I have always thought is a good place to be if you want comfort. There is something about rocking back and forth that makes you feel better. Maybe this woman feels the same way and has come to the rocking chair to deal with her husband’s death. A different interpretation of this has to do with the tie around her waist. This was the first thing that I noticed when I looked at this portrait. I thought that it was a rope tying her to the rocking chair but then I realized that it is her bathrobe tie. I wonder if the artist wanted us to think at first that it is a rope to get the idea that the woman feels imprisoned. Maybe she feels trapped by her older body and the fact that she can’t do as much as when she was younger or maybe she feels that way because her family has taken over making decisions for her such as putting her in a nursing home.

Third, the colors in the portrait add more details to the interpretation. Most of the colors in this painting are dark- the dark blue dresser, dark colored walls and floor. I think this dark color may show how this woman’s life is dark and that she is depressed. The only bright color in the painting is the yellow of the lemons. I wonder why the artist wanted the lemons to stand out so much. Maybe it is because the artist is comparing the subject to the lemons. Maybe she is bitter about something like how lemons are sour.

Overall, the subject’s face, the details and the colors in the painting all give us clues about who the woman is. I think that she is sad, lonely, afraid, bitter, and she feels hopeless and trapped.