Reflection on My Visit to The Bass Museum of Art

On February 4, I visited The Bass Museum of Art which is located in Miami Beach, Florida in the United State. The museum was opened again in October 2017 because had closed for restoration in 2015. The Bass Museum was founded in 1964 thanks to a donation from a private collection of John and Johanna Bass to the city of Miami Beach. The museum is in a park where I had skated sometimes with my friends and I was always curious to enter and see it but I never did it until this day that I had to go for the project of my class.

While walking through the museum they were explaining the different areas that the museum had. The first room I visited was where the oil paintings were, which caught my attention because of the brightness, the notification and the colors they had. There were other objects such as an Egyptian tomb, a knight on horseback and some masks which I noticed very strange. The work that I most liked was 'The Coronation of the Virgin with Saints' by Sandro Botticelli but his real name was Alessandro de Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, Italian painter born on March 1, 1445 and Domenico Bigordi known by the nickname Ghirlandaio, born in Florence, Italy on June 2, 1494. This work caught my attention for what it means, the scene is divided into two separate parts. The lower part means when the first Christians expected the imminent return of Christ and the superior in which the miracle takes place where the coronation of the virgin by God is seen surrounded by cherubs, seraphim and angels. The cherubs and seraphim are angels who work together and under the immediate orders of God, serving as their counselors and managers of the greatest and most important and other angels were responsible for transmitting God's message to people.

One of the works that also caught my attention was the Egyptian tomb. It caught my attention because it was something I had never seen before, it was from the 9th-6th century before our era and we didn’t know who the grave was. From my point of view I could see the tomb was made of wood and plaster and had colors which explained to me that in those days it was colored with nuts that crushed them gripping dust and then gave it color. Wanting to explore more about this work of art I learned that the sarcophagi of the ancient Egyptian used to be the outer protective layer of a real mummy with several layers of coffins nested inside. They were decorated with carvings with hieroglyphics and reliefs both internally and externally and ornate paintings. The materials used ranged from stone to metal.

The work that I didn’t like was 'Masques delaves'. These masks offer a similar exotic and mystical quality. These masks were made of wood, with more materials like sunglasses’ sticks and sewing pins. These works were made by Pascale Marthine Tayou, born in Cameroon in 1966. The work didn’t captivate my attention because from my point of view it is not something nice and its take me back to the time of the African black slaves and Indians. The work that was on exhibit was 'Ponytails (2014)'. The artist of this work is Mika Rottenberg born in Uruguay and raised in Israel. The mechanical work Ponytails sets a disturbing tone. A set of three pigtails shrinks and slides, emerging through holes in the wall that would supposedly be where their owners hide. Their isolated and repetitive movements cause the view to concentrate on the mundane, which would lead to an evaluation of the daily elements that would go unnoticed.

The work that I would like to have in my house as a decoration would be 'Saint Martin on Horseback'. This work shows a man on horseback named Saint Martin, born in Italy. Martin was known for having many different prophetic visions that came true, he was also known for his generosity and humility in helping beggars. The work impressed me because I love horses. The color, the finished work and the details of this work was something that caught my attention because not everyone has the ability to make that beautifully work. In conclusion, I can conclude that this visit to The Bass Museum of Art made me realize that everything is art, no matter how strange or ugly it is, it will always be art and it will have some positive side to look at it. With this visit to the museum I saw things that I never see it before and I hope to visit other museums from now because this one was a very interesting visit in which I learned a lot.