The second I was told there was going to be a field trip to Philadelphia, I knew I was going to sign up to go. I had only been to Philadelphia once before with my family for the day and didn’t get to see much. I looked out the window of the bus and saw this amazing building with huge columns overlooking the water. I couldn’t stop staring at it, then my friend asked me “What are you staring at?” I replied “That beautiful building over there,” and pointed at. She said to me, “That’s where we’re getting dropped off,” once she said this I couldn’t stop smiling.
We arrived at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and immediately got off the bus and walked inside. We walked up the stairs to proceed to the first level and walked into the American and European Art section. This is where I fell in love with the painting “Bombardment” by Philip Guston. This painting is an emotionally charged scene about the Spanish Civil War. It depicts the aerial bombardment of a civilian population by warplanes. It is in a circle format with a dark and grim color scheme.
The people in “Bombardment” seem to give a feeling of human hatred and destruction. It appears to me that they are swarming around each other holding on for life. One is very small and fragile looking, like a child, while others are older and appear to be in a panic. The face that stands out the most to me is the one that has a gas mask on and is in a blood red shirt, which gives a sense of death and doom. This figure is off to the side on its own, and is the most noticeable because it is the one who is causing the chaos and panic in the other figures faces.
There are several warplanes and dark, eerie clouds above the scene, which create an atmosphere of constantly being watched and looked over. No matter where you look within the painting, war is everywhere. People usually look to the heavens for safety, while these people are seeing nothing but doom and are feeling nothing but terror. The circular shape of “Bombardment” gives it feelings that, these petrified people are about to come out into the real world and come to life. It gives a sense that they are flying around in circles and are going to fly out of the painting. I definitely like that this painting is circular because it gives it a lot of extra depth and character.
Guston used dark, morbid colors in his painting. These colors reflect death and hatred. The red color of the gas figures shirt is almost bloody. The green pants on one figure, and yellow shirt on another, gives me a feeling that these people are innocent and want to get away, but with the dark blacks, blues, and grays in the background of the town, and in the sky, shows to me that something bad is about to happen to them.
After I sat and stared at this picture for a long amount of time, trying to wrap my head around all of the emotions it gave off, I decided it was time to find my friends to walk through more rooms and check out other interesting displays. None of them appealed to me as much as Guston’s, “Bombardment.” We decided to head out of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and to take a bus to a different museum. Since we had already experienced a large museum, we eventually decided to find an interesting, small art gallery in Old City. We made our way around the streets, stopped for some delicious Starbucks, and saw a quaint little house, with a very large sign that read “F.A.N. Gallery.” This caught our attention right away.
As we made our way inside, we realized what a marvelous art gallery we stumbled upon. The house it was in was very, very old and every step we took, the floor would creak. The man working at the gallery told us that the building was built in the 1700’s, which amazed us. It had this incredibly steep, windy staircase, with poles on the walls to hold onto as you climbed the mountainous stairs.
I made my way to the very back of the gallery and the last painting on the wall was by Carlo Russo, titled, “Pink Roses.” There were several other paintings of different colored roses, almost like it, but this one caught my attention and gave me a different feeling than the others. The roses are two different colored pinks and at the end of the stems, a leaf fell off. They seem to tell a story, maybe about love, or life and death, but whatever the story might be behind the painting, intrigued me the most.
The first rose all the way to the left is a very lively, bright pink. The ideas that came to my mind when looking at the first rose was that it seemed to be symbolizing happiness, healthiness, love and life. Then as my eyes looked to the right more, I saw another rose. But, this one was a paler pink, almost like it was dying. This made me think of losing faith or losing someone who was important in your life. The feeling of the painting became sadder, more gloomy and depressing. As my eyes looked at the stems, I realized they turned brown, and aren’t a lively green anymore. There was also a leaf that wasn’t on the stem anymore; this gave me feelings of disconnect or detaching yourself from someone. I also felt like the stems appeared to be dying, because of the brownish color they were turning.
“Pink Roses,” can be interpreted in different ways to different people, which I liked the most about it. It didn’t have a specific story to go along with it, which left ideas open to the viewers. Who knew you could find such an interesting painting in such a quaint, quiet, little gallery. Both “Bombardment,” and “Pink Roses,” caught my attention the most out of all of the other works. I really enjoyed the trip to Philadelphia, and hope to visit there again soon to check out all of the other wonderful places the city has to offer.
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