Response Paper

TITLE: Richard Misrach(Artist) - On the Beach Subject: ARTS 1301

The piece of artwork presented in this paper is basically a picture taken by the artist and not an actual painting or artwork drawn by the artist. The artist has taken the picture of the people on the beach on a clear day time. This picture shows a beach which consists of white sand and the sand looks dried out. There are many people lying on the beach by the use of their towels. Most of the towels are blue in color. While other towels are white, maroon, orange and red in color. The picture shown is from the top, i.e. vertically from the position people are sleeping or resting on the beach. There are men as well as women on the beach. Men are mostly on their shorts and women are in their bikinis. We can see white and black people in this picture. While some people are simply lying straight, others are lying upside down as they feel comfortable. There is no proper arrangement of the towels or the positioning in which people are resting. Everything looks disorganized and the faces of the different people are not clear, so it is not possible to recognize people as well nothing can be said about the expressions or the feelings of the persons sitting on the beach. The beach comprises largely of couples lying next to each other. Most of the couples are on the dry sand whereas three couples are resting on the wet sand which is very near to the water of the beach. As the picture is taken in the day-time, there is direct sunlight on the people facing the sky. In addition there are two umbrellas on the down left corners of the picture or the beach under which couples are resting but the umbrellas are not completely shown in the picture. One more important thing to note is that people are bare footed and their shoes are left aside. The artist’s intent in taking this photograph and presenting in the National Gallery of art, Washington is to address the contemporary society’s relationship to nature especially the American West. Contemporary society means the way people are transforming through various factors such as social, cultural, economic, and technological factors and how it is affecting them. The artist has taken the photo looking down from the hotel room directly adjacent to the beach. The artist wanted to take the photo in such a way that none of the persons on the beach was having their attention on the sky or on him and he wanted to capture that particular moment to convey a message to the world. The artist recorded the moment when people were immersed in the peaceful environment. All persons on the beach were enjoying their time with their partners or family members and it was very pleasing to see this view and everyone was quite peaceful. However the artist intent here is show that despite the beauty of the beach and environment in which people were enjoying, there was sense of uneasiness among people. Something looked very strange to the artist and he observed restlessness among them. Because this photograph was taken immediately few days after the September 11, 2011, the artist’s intent might be to show that still people are uneasy and the sense of fear is still in them and is spread out everywhere among people of the united states after the attack on the world trade center. Often referred to as 9/11, the attacks caused several deaths and led to destruction of the several buildings. More than 3000 people were killed in these attacks including many police officers. Artist may predict that people have become cautious and have fear of any similar forthcoming incident that may harm them. So people are lost their world and are thinking of the recent attacks that has disturbed their country. Though their body is present, their minds are somewhere else and disturbing thoughts are accumulating their minds. The artist has taken the image of the Hawaii beach where people have come to swim and also take sunbath on the sunny day. The picture was taken by the artist from the top facing the sunbathers’ body. Beach is a place whereby people from their busy schedules come so that they can forget their routine tasks and refresh themselves so that they spend good leisure time with their families or their partners. The photograph was not taken very clearly, it was taken from very distant place and height and due to this reason the faces of the people are not clear. Further people look very tiny from the picture and so the minute details of the picture cannot be exactly said. Large number of people are at a much distant from the flowing beach water so that they can sunbath and only a few people are near the flowing water where is much cooler air present. So it all depends on the people’s preferences of where they want to relax. Though there aren’t exact straight lines in which they have relaxed on the beach, but they do look like less organized sunbathing positions. People want to tan their bodies and that’s the another reason why they are here. Few people are just lying down either on their back or sun faced, others are sitting and having conversations with their partners whereas others are looking at the flowing water of the beach and at the people who are swimming and they are enjoying their time. After all, people come on the beaches just to spend good amount of time and put aside all other important work aside for some time. Moreover the picture of the beach area looks very attractive and because there are combinations of colors seen in the picture especially blue color, it provides more freshness and calmness to the picture; people look more relaxed and lively. In addition, people are isolated among themselves; they do not tend to interact with other people present around. People seem not to care about what others are doing. Usually beach is a place where we see different people play either volleyball or tennis or have fun with their children or they take pictures of their families together or they walk around and enjoy the much needed time. But here we don’t see that enthusiasm among people and people look more reserved and self-centered.