Museum Review

I traveled to the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Inside contained some fabulous more unknown artists and, to my surprise, some pieces from more known artists, such as Andy Worhol. But one piece that stood out to me the most was Painted by an unknown artist. The painting was named The Visitation and was created in 1496-1497. This panel is actually part of a set painted by the artist. This is stated in the plaque on the wall next to the painting. The medium for this painted was oil and it was painted on a wood panel. It is surrounded bya gorgeous carved golden frame. This painted is very detailed throughout, I even spotted a little fairy- looking person in the background, also a creepy doll tearing through the girl in red’s skirt. The two women are Juana,a woman who is sought to be married to Phillip and Marget of Austria and it is symbolic to the Virgin Mary meeting Saint Elizabeth, hence the golden halos. This is also stated in the plaque next to the painted on the wall. There are many lines through this painting. One is where there is a girl in red in the background and the is holding a sort of septur and it is pointing towards the castle, possibly being symbolic towards the royal aspect of the marriage. Also the halos are formed from gold lines circling Juana’s and Marget of Austria’s heads, which draws the eyes toward their faces. When you see Juana’s face her eyes are looking down creating a line to Marget’s hand and her arm leads to her face. For the color, the background is made up of more earth-toned colors. There is a girl in the background who is in red, but it is a very muted red, with gold throughout. Juana’s gown is in a dark blue and Marget’s is a bright red. Marget has a white shawl and Juana has a very pale complexion. I think this one done in order to accent those two the most in the painting. This painting was surrounded by other various paintings from the same unknown artist, most have the same color schemes and style. This one was actually placed in the middle of the wall and a light was shining brighter on this one than the others. It had the most decorative of the frames on all of the other paintings as well. The museum put these paintings on a dark blue wall, which I think accented the gold frames much better than if they were on a plain white wall.