One of the most famous Russian paintings that portray the suffering yet thriving in harsh conditions is The Barge Haulers on the Volga by Realism genre painter, Ilya Repin. This painting was painted in 1873 on the basis of numerous studies and portrait sketches collected young painter while traveling along the Volga River in 1870, and was a testament to his creative spiritual maturity. In one of the letters to Stasov, Repin wrote that the theme of the painting was born under the impression seen on the Neva River and Volga River scenes: festively dressed gentlemen strolling and haulers in the next strap, pulling the barge. There are eleven characters, all as one, - the poor and disadvantaged, but each - with personality and character. According to Burlak Kanin. This elderly person with a barge hauler ancient philosopher embodies the best features of the Russian peasant: serenity, wisdom, perseverance. Next to him - bearded incarnation of primal power, and Ilka, the sailor with severe fierce gaze from his matted hair robber... powerless omitted boatmen hands, legs stretched, and in th...
Liu encountered these families during her four years in the countryside. The painting depicts two men, perhaps a father and son, working together to pull a boat upstream. Although the boat is not in the picture, one can sense the weight from the postures, effort and strength of the men. Two men are contrasted by small images of the fragile, precious snuff bottles and the delicate dragonfly in the corner, both traditional Chinese symbols. The painting shows the 2 men in perfect rhythm with the appearance of sweat falling from their efforts. The positive focus is the 2 men in the picture with many negative white and dark colors. I believe the artist wanted you to feel the darkness and the sadness of the men as they did what that had to do to survive. You can almost feel the pain as they stress their bodies to the limits. I was truly intrigued by this piece of work, and would love to learn more about the artist’s
In “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod, the mother shows the importance of tradition to her, which has been cemented in her since youth. Throughout the piece, the reader realizes that the mother comes from a large traditional family of fisherman, which in effect the mother’s most defining characteristic was that she “was of the sea, as were all her people, and her horizons were the very literal ones she scanned with her dark and fearless eyes”. Tradition and her inherited family values shaped her personality that was shown throughout the piece, such as her diligence during her husband’s fishing excursions to her stubbornness throughout the family’s hardships. In a sense, a large part of her identity came directly from her traditions, which she felt
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” At some point in life one is faced with a decision which will define the future, but only time will tell whether or not the choice was right or wrong. The Boat by Alistair MacLeod demonstrates that an individual should make their own decisions in life, be open to new experiences and changes, and that there is no way to obtain something, without sacrificing something else.
This exhibition features painting of strugglers of poverty are begging the rich for anything to spare, so that they will be able to survive another day. Each of these paintings is telling a story of the hardships people are facing in the world.
“Stalingrad is the scene of the costliest and most stubborn battle in this war. The battle fought there to its desperate finish may turn out to be among the decisive battles in the long history of war…In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness, and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and death conflict which encompasses the earth”
The representation of the new age of exploration, which serves as an allusion to man’s potential, is starkly contrasted with the depiction of Icarus that serves as an allegory for man’s limits, indicating the shift from a euro-centric universe. This painting is an oil canvas landscape of the sun setting on the horizon of the ocean sea, while the ships were sailing through the body of water. The focus on humanism during this period is clearly portrayed by the presence of the plowman, shepherd, and fisherman performing their daily task. Lighter colors are used, which differ from the darker colors that were emphasized during the Dark Age or Medieval period. Shadows can be seen on the ground next to the plowman, showing the increasing artistic methods that begin to be utilized.
“The Boat”, narrated by a Mid-western university professor, Alistar MacLeod, is a short story concerning a family and their different perspectives on freedom vs. tradition. The mother pushes the son to embrace more of a traditional lifestyle by taking over the fathers fishing business, while on the other hand the father pushes the son to live more autonomously in an unconstrained manner. “The Boat” focuses on the father and how his personality influences the son’s choice on how to live and how to make decisions that will ultimately affect his life. In Alistair MacLeod’s, “The Boat”, MacLeod suggest that although dreams and desires give people purpose, the nobility of accepting a life of discontentment out weighs the selfishness of following ones own true desires. In the story, the father is obligated to provide for his family as well as to continue the fishing tradition that was inherited from his own father. The mother emphasizes the boat and it’s significance when she consistently asked the father “ How did things go in the boat today” since tradition was paramount to the mother. H...
With this image, the speaker expresses that she wants the readers to experience the literary work. The narrator wants the readers to imagine a water buffalo working hard, then imagining people who work just as hard as the water buffalo. The poet uses this stanza to conveys her messages, ideas and thoughts through. Next, the speaker uses a rhetorical device, metaphor, which is found in stanza two line one: “I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,” (8). The speaker uses metaphor describing people who work hard, to an ox working hard. With this metaphor, it enhances images described by the speaker by making them more creative and interesting. It also makes the story sounds poetic without writing the story in verses. The last r...
Alistair Macleod’s “The Boat” is a tale of sacrifice, and of silent struggle. A parent’s sacrifice not only of their hopes and dreams, but of their life. The struggle of a marriage which sees two polar opposites raising a family during an era of reimagining. A husband embodying change and hope, while making great sacrifice; a wife gripped in fear of the unknown and battling with the idea of losing everything she has ever had. The passage cited above strongly presents these themes through its content
The last poem “The Fish” illustrates the sorrow of life itself. The skin, the blood, the entrails, everything of the fish depicts vividly and dramatically. The poet seems to share the same pain with the fish observing the scene and enjoys the detail just like enjoying an artwork. The poet lets the fish go because she is totally touched by the process between life and death; she loves life but meanwhile, is deeply hurt by the life. In the poem, the fish has no fear towards her; the desire to life is in the moving and tragic details when faces the
It depicts a dark and grimy tightly crowded railroad car full of anonymous working class men and women. Shabbily dressed, the passengers are slumped slightly over seemingly submissive to their situation in life and the severity of the period’s economic reality. This oil painting is formally made up of dark sketchy outlines and textured surfaces. The profound contrast between lights and darks create clear edges in opposition to the looser brushwork elsewhere. This in a way helps to convey the hardship of the subjects’ daily life. The fact that this scene is set in a railroad car also exemplifies the use of new industrial subject matter of the nineteenth century
No Bricks and No Temples: Coping with Crisis in “The Open Boat” Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” concerns four people who are trying to reach land after surviving a shipwreck off the Florida coast. During the course of the story, they face dangers that are real physical threats, but they also have to deal with trying to make sense of their situation. The characters in this story cope with their struggles in two ways: individually, they each imagine that Nature, or Fate, or God, is behind their experiences, which allows them to blame some outside force for their struggle, and together, they form a bond of friendship that helps them keep their spirits up. . In “Becoming Interpreters: The Importance of Tone in ‘The Open Boat,’” Gregory Schirmer states that “‘The Open Boat has at its center two quite different views of man: as a helpless and insignificant being adrift in a universe that is wholly indifferent to him and his ambitions, and on the other hand, as part of a brotherhood that binds man to man in the face of that indifferent universe” (222).
In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. As they get closer to land a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. (255-270) “The Open Boat’s” main theme deals with a character’s seemingly insignificant life struggle against nature’s indifference. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, creative point of view, and a mix of irony.
Fresh food, clothing and electronic appliance, to name but a few, most of the goods that the public currently use are not produced locally, these goods are shipped from worldwide. Many experts believe that shipping containers have a bigger impact than the aeroplane and microchips. Not to mention it was also the major reason for the development of globalization. In early 20 centuries, products from overseas are not usually found because shipping in a long distance was exorbitant and time-consuming which made shipping not popular. However, the simple steel boxes have changed all these. The maturation of free trade helped the promotion of shipping containers, and as the demand for various products
The painting was of a river flowing from a lake, surrounded by very tall grass. On each side of the river there are people standing. What was interesting is they were painted all black. They looked like shaded figures. They were all shaped differently but you can tell they were all men. On the top left side of the river there were five men. On the right bottom side of the river there were four men. On each side it looked as though the men were trying to cross over to the other side. They looked tired and scared. It looked as though they were hiding, and getting across the river was the only way to get to that safe haven.