Crainial weather patterns
To all my friends from apple, DHS, and school, I'm going to begin a series of blogs that track and include pieces of my brainstorming and general progress on my history research paper.
I decidied to do this because I am more likely to look at this than my evernote (sorry @voxaeterno), and moleskins are good for creative writing only at this point in my life.
So I was thinking about my topics and had thrown up the idea of writing on either politics in SoTex or the History of the American West in Art. After tossing the idea around and directly at my professor, the Art thing seemed to really click.
Now that I had a general theme, it was time to get down to the specifics. I needed an argument. I don't mean the kind I have with some I my coworkers. I needed something to prove about the topic.
One particular artist who painted the West, Albert Beirstadt, approached his portrayal different from his colleagues at the time of the late 1800s. Instead of painting what was is front of him (the landscape itself or a photo), he merged features of different famous landmarks into one painting, giving the west an other-worldly sense.
This perspective on the west reflects an idea in cultural studies that people develop a mythology about their history that is seperate but tied to the actual facts of the past.
I think I can approach Beirstadt's work through this lens and come out with some good arguments and, maybe, add something to the discussion of history.
More to come...
I decidied to do this because I am more likely to look at this than my evernote (sorry @voxaeterno), and moleskins are good for creative writing only at this point in my life.
So I was thinking about my topics and had thrown up the idea of writing on either politics in SoTex or the History of the American West in Art. After tossing the idea around and directly at my professor, the Art thing seemed to really click.
Now that I had a general theme, it was time to get down to the specifics. I needed an argument. I don't mean the kind I have with some I my coworkers. I needed something to prove about the topic.
One particular artist who painted the West, Albert Beirstadt, approached his portrayal different from his colleagues at the time of the late 1800s. Instead of painting what was is front of him (the landscape itself or a photo), he merged features of different famous landmarks into one painting, giving the west an other-worldly sense.
This perspective on the west reflects an idea in cultural studies that people develop a mythology about their history that is seperate but tied to the actual facts of the past.
I think I can approach Beirstadt's work through this lens and come out with some good arguments and, maybe, add something to the discussion of history.
More to come...
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