The lecture today elaborated on the new underlying theme of making connections for the next essay due in March. Gary and Jane overviewed a selection of over 30 images that involved information and facts about them. It came apparent that this essay wasn't about the composition necessarily having the most importance, but the connotations and reflections of the artist themselves and the impact their own background and period of time that would have altered their work.
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| The Scapegoat- William Holman Hunt- 1854-1856 |
Additionally I think it provided us with a larger perspective of alternate artwork, for example, Gary made it clear that if we knew anything about the artists we should select a different image, as this is all about selecting a whole new outlook on a piece we don't necessarily recognise or know much about.
The image that I chose at random was 'The Scapegoat' by William Holman Hunt. The quick points that were made about this piece were:
- It's an extremely symbolic piece, metaphorical in some aspects, it has alternate controversial meanings - linking highly to the time period.
- Biblical references thoroughly throughout the composition, including the actual goat itself.
We have been informed to research some key words into the piece we have been given for next week's lecture and session, I feel quite excited to look further into the research as it's a piece that I don't know anything about besides the composition so would be extremely interesting to look further into it and narrow down three key words that I feel represent the image.
6th February 2015
Today was the opportunity to develop our ideas further by presenting our key words that we had looked into further individually during the week. I had already produced a small selection of key words that I found were relevant in correlation with my initial research:
- Biblical- In the research involved it was made instantly clear that there were a high amount of bible references throughout the piece's composition as well as the surrounding Christians that the artist faced when constructing the piece. The piece is actually a reaction to a religious ceremony that took place when the artist was present, that influenced his decision in painting the scapegoat.
- Holy land- I chose this initial word due to the Holy land being the Christian reference to Jerusalem, the home of Jesus Christ and the ultimate birthplace. However. I'd like the keyword to be more precise and detailed on this fact.
- Sins- The sinful aspect of the process was made extremely apparent when researching into the ceremony. The cloth that was tied around the antlers of the goat was red, and it was believed in the Christian ceremony that they would release this goat into the Holy land, and it gave the belief that if the goat returned with a white cloth upon it's head, their sins were forgiven. However they allowed the wild to 'take' the goat if its sins were not forgiven.
- Atonement- The Festival of Atonement was the ceremony of which Christians began to free a goat into the Holy land of Jerusalem hoping that the red cloth upon it's head would be returned white, to show forgiveness of sins.
- Jerusalem- Jerusalem is the key aspect of this piece, not only for the theme, but for the fact that the artist produced this piece in the country, but had to flee after the ceremony due to controversial views of the artist's intentions.
- Death- Death is key within this piece, not only connotations with the skeletal aspects in the composition but also the aspect of the fate of the goat.
- Forgiveness- The aspect theme of forgiveness is additionally key for the research, as it explains the process of why in fact they did this, and their true belief that sins can be forgiven by the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
The highlighted words are ultimately my selected 3 key words I found were the most relevant to the task in hand.
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