Boise Art Museum Essay

Boise Art Museum is located in a serene environment with beautifully manicured lawns adorned with various artifacts. I had the privilege of visiting this renowned museum on 18th August 2003. During this time an exhibition showing the ceramic artistic works of Wanxin Zhang was ongoing. The ceramic works featured Chinese figures molded to the height of an average person and each piece having its own uniqueness. Each of the figures represented different emotions and personalities. Some of the figures even had clothing that depicted a combination of tradition and modernity. One astonishing aspect about the figures is how the artist managed such art with such huge ceramics. This depicted mastery of the art. Although all the figures were brown in color and more or less of the same size, it was very easy to discern differences in terms of the emotions and personalities displayed by the clothing, posture and facial expressions. This outlined how diversity can be achieved in art just by varying aspects such as posture and facial expression. The technique was superb as the artist managed utilize contour to bring out contrast in different parts of the body and to create outline for the clothing. The finishing was also smooth and rough surfaces were meant to bring certain aspects of the figure such as clothing. The figures are also amazing due to the extent that they manage to combine tradition and modernity. Looking at the figures one also notices the sense of humor of the artist. Some figures were adorned with glasses and some had neck ties. This gave the figures a funny and a ridiculous look. Generally the artist outlined how possible though ridiculous it would be to combine tradition and modernity in a single piece of work. This is actually a very rare observation considering that the figures still manage to look artistic and portray a rich Chinese culture. Reference: Boise Art Museum. (2010, August 18). Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from Boise Art Museum: http://boiseartmuseum. org/exhibit/current. php