Personal Narrative: My Trip To The Figge Art Museum

This celebration started off 2500-3000 years ago that was created by ancestors of Indigenous nations to commemorate the death of their family members. This celebration has dated back from an Aztec festival for the goddess Micteccachihualti and has become a national symbol for the nation. The Mciteccachihualti was a queen of the dead in which the people of this time used skull as the Mayan and Aztec traditions. The origins of the day of the dead begins in ancient Mesoamerica cultures and arrives in Mexico in the early 1500s. The skeleton images are associated with this holiday, such as Calaveras made with sugar and decorated with bright colors that establish a unique Mexican style of art. The skeleton was used to represent the dead playfully ridiculing the living in ancient rituals. The day of the dead is celebrated on November 1st. on this day we commemorate the deaths of the infants or children who passed away and on November 2nd. It is referred to commemorate all adults who passed away.

Sunny Albuquerque rests atop an escalated desert, and celebrates Halloween a notch above the rest of the planet. With roots from Mexico, New Mexico has been participating in “Las Dias de Los Muertos” (The Days of the Dead) long before the land became a state of the USA. During Oct. 31 – Nov. 4, the Spanish recognize the spirits who stay among them, and honor those that have passed. They have the belief that maybe the spirits of the deceased are among them every day, but the end of October and early November is the chosen time to honor the nonliving. It teaches the Spanish to accept death, as it can’t be avoided. To bring some joy into the morbid topic, they build intricate shrines for their passed family members, dance the night away to music, and have fiestas. Skulls are vibrantly painted with the name of the deceased on them. Of course, plenty of spicy Spanish food is cooked and enjoyed.

Dia de Los Muertos, also known as the Day of the Dead, is an internationally recognized Mexican holiday which consists of the gatherings of friends and family to honor those who have passed. Similar rituals commemorating those who have deceased are believed to have began around 3,000 years ago. Dia de Los Muertos takes place three days from October 31st to November 2nd. October 31st is known as All Hallows Eve and is a time when the children invite the spirits of deceased children to come back. November 1st is All Saints Day and is when the adult spirits are said to return. November 2nd is All Souls Day and is when families go and decorate the graves of their lost loved ones. The building of private altars in cemeteries containing the

On Dia de los Muertos, the people who celebrate this holiday celebrate death. The Mexicans and Central Americans who celebrate Dia de los Muertos think that death is just another part of life, and that the people who die go to the afterlife. During Dia de los Muertos, the families of the loved ones who’ve died will create an altar for the dead person’s spirit. The families will make the altar, and cover it with food, decorations, and things that the person had once liked. Objects like a drink or food they liked, or a colored cloth representing the color, or even toys or games that the person liked before the death. The altar is covered in Las Flores. This flower is something that everyone has on their altars. Las Velas light and guide the souls to the altar.The people also celebrating Dia de los Muertos dress up like what the person looked like, or what job they had. On Halloween, people dress up as whatever they want to be to get candy, and go Trick-or-Treating. On Halloween in Europe in medieval times, the people would go out in costumes because they were scared that there were spirits roaming around. They didn’t do this “holiday” because it was fun, instead they did it out of fear. Halloween started with the Celtic pagan ritual known as Samhain. During “Halloween” in medieval times, the people believed that barrier between our world, and the spirit world was at its thinnest, and people could communicate with the dead.

Over the course of history there have been many contrasting and similar views in terms of religion and the practices done in this aspect. An example is the Mexica (name given by the West to refer to the Aztecs) practices of El Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) and the Catholic (people in the Christian religion loyal to the Roman Catholic Church and the leader of that church, the Pope) practices of the holiday. The Day of the Dead fell on about the beginning of August which was the ninth month on the Aztec Solar Calendar and was celebrated for the entire month. The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations commemorated this day by using skulls to honor and

When I was younger, my dad and I used to go on dates to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Although I haven’t been there for over five years now, I still remember one piece of art that took my breath away; not because of the beauty of the artwork, but because of the shiver it sent down my spine, and the uneasy feeling I had when I looked at it. The piece of art that made me so apprehensive was a wax model of a museum security guard. The intricate detail of the figure, including the pores in the skin and the hair on the knuckles, left me wondering if this man were going to suddenly leap forward and yell, “Gotcha!”

The belief in the afterlife involved with this holiday is very similar to that of the mesoamericans. The aztecs in particular had a month long celebration, very similar to that of Day of the Dead, in which they honored and delivered offerings to the deceased. When the spaniards arrived they did a fair job of popularizing their faith among the mesoamericans. The mesoamericans moved their month long celebration of death to coincide with the catholic holidays of All Saints and All Souls(November 1st and 2nd). Today, Day of the Dead is about celebrating death by creating altars carpeted with offerings to the souls of loved ones. Today, an iconic symbol of Día de los Muertos is the skeleton, one of the most significant skeleton characters is La Catrina. Day of the Dead is now picking up bits and pieces of Halloween tradition. Children are now participating in pedir los muertos, or ask the dead, during which children dress in costumes and meander, receiving candy as well as things from people’s day of the dead altars, in some places.

During Parent’s Weekend at Marquette, my family and I went to the Haggerty Art Museum. While I pleaded with my family to not go, as I am not a huge art fan, my Mom’s opinion overruled mine. From the outside, Haggerty looked like it would be small, but in reality, was quite large. When walking in, I immediately assumed that the art would not make any sense to me like at most art museums. However, I was quickly proven wrong as a lot of the art we saw was what I would consider impressive. They were not the drawings of a line or pieces that look like a child made them that you see at most museums, but what I call “real art”.

Foreigners have more trouble understanding Dia de Los Muertos than any of Mexico's other celebrations. At first glance, they see Day of the Dead decorations which are colored paper garlands, little skeletons performing daily tasks and sugar skulls inscribed with names, which remind them of Halloween. Other tourists discover that much like Memorial or Remembrance Day in the US, families here visit, clean and decorate graves of loved ones for the

Jan van Eyck was active since 1422 and died in 1441. He was the most celebrated painter of the fifteen-century in Europe. One of his famous works is “The Last Judgment”. At first sight this work immediately attracted my attention. The painting’s stunning colors and the fact that it reminded me of a previous similar work I have seen, triggered in my mind. The material that is used is oil on canvas, transferred from wood. The size of this work is 22 1/4 *7 2/3 in. (56.5 * 19.7cm).

My experience to the Dallas Museum of Art was a bit different from the last time I had attended the museum. I was curious to see what pieces of art there would be and if it would be the same as the previous visit which was long ago, but to me all the pieces of art were so different and very interesting. It may have been because I saw all the pieces in a new perspective since learning about the different types of paintings there can be and knowing how and where sculptures come from. Even though I do not know much of art I really gave it a try into seeing what the artist may have wanted us to get out of his work. By reading a view of the chapters made me aware of art, I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but it was actually nice knowing that a

My trip to the Chicago’s Field Museum was very exhilarating. It was an amazing opportunity to visit a resourceful place that gave me a visual understanding of some of the concepts we learn in Physical geography.The Grainger Hall of gems exhibit is a display of many minerals species, also known as gems. They are arranged into specific categories across the exhibit. The categories are silicates, oxides, organic gems, elementals, and phosphates. These categories are based on general traits of the gems.The second exhibit, The Evolving Planets was about the first species and how the world’s changes affected them before species of today existed. The Evolving Planet exhibit is grouped by six different mass extinctions that occurred before there was

My classmates and I have taken a trip to the Philbrooke Museum in Tulsa, OK. Mrs. Selby told all of us to stay together but my friend and I thought it would be a good idea to have a tour on our own. We walked all around the Museum and found the basement. It was dark through the hallway until we reached the underground basement. It was filled with ancient mummies. We got to looking around and started hearing loud strange noises; all of a sudden the lights went out. We couldn’t see a thing. The coffins that the mummies were kept in started shaking, we knew then that this wasn’t good. We started running for the door but we couldn’t get there in time. One of the mummies had us cornered. I was scared for my life. Then strangely, the mummy that

I visited the Tampa Museum of Art. This was my first visit to a museum and I was excited and intrigued and looking forward to seeing what was beyond the glass doors. The art exhibitions that I was able to see were all amazing to behold. For some reason, I was expecting to walk into a huge celestial auditorium that would have me in awe but wasn’t the case. During my tour of the Tampa Museum of Art, the artist and art that stood out to me most interestingly were Elizabeth Condon; “American Pastorale” 2016.

My overall experience at El Paso Museum of Art was better than I expected for the overall visit. First I like the say the security was very nice to welcome me into the museum. The security guard explains the exhibits and I can take pics, but it couldn’t be with a flash. I was very impress during my visit by so many painting and sculptures that I would never have even thought I could find stimulating and actually enjoying the amazing collection of oil canvas paintings that had the ability to bring you different styles of art just a dim and well-lit room full of pictures and sculptures, where I could stand for a few minutes feeling where I’m in the different time and place. My first thought about The El Paso art museums is that they're very