Sculptures: Loud vs Quiet For the past year, I have continuously walked past buildings and statues paying little to no attention to them. Ask me what sculpture was in front of the tower and I had no idea. However, after observing Luis Jimenez’s Progress II, and Seymour Lipton’s Guardian, I have a whole new appreciation for the difference in artwork. While some pieces are meant to draw you in with their loud presence and bold figures, others are very quiet with an audacious meaning. Once closely examining both realms, there are many contrasts such as orientation, materials, subject matter, and expressive content. One essential contrast between Luis Jimenez’s Progress II, and Seymour Lipton’s Guardian is the varying orientations. While Progress II has a clear front and back, Guardian does not. I found Guardian to be much more open to interpretation than Jimenez’s artwork due to the lack of clarity and definition within the piece. I originally found the side facing the main entrance to the reading room to appear as if the piece was “cut in half” and you were experiencing a cross-sectional view whereas Progress had a clear front and back from first glance and was less open to interpretation in that sense. Luis Jimenez carefully sculpted the red-eyed longhorn, horse, and cowboy to appear in motion in a specific direction. This sculpture is slightly larger than life and slightly above eye level, placed on a base. Raising the work off of the ground allows the viewer to truly capture the detail Jimenez placed on the underside of the larger animals and cowboy. Ripples, ribs, and muscles are all distinctly defined, enhancing the motion of the sculpture and further showing the directionality of the piece. When walking through the Blanton museum, I was in awe when I came to the room containing the Jimenez. It drew me in immediately due to the presence it carries, filling up almost the entire room. It was not until later that I realized the artwork I had stumbled upon was Jimenez’s Progress II. The embodying sculpture is strategically placed in the center of the room, reaching out into the Blanton museum with the illuminate red eye facing the entrance to the room. There are very few pieces in the same room and they all have a more over-looking presence. I personally did not even notice them until actually looking for the surrounding artwork. The main focus is clearly Jimenez’s work. Lipton’s work did not necessarily draw me into the room, however it was the first thing I saw upon entering. It is placed on a base as well but is still at eye level. If placed in a corner, the majority of people walking into the room would most likely not even notice it. The sculpture is dark, motionless, and not necessarily “eye-catching.” Being placed at the entrance calls more attention because it is the first and last thing seen when entering and leaving the room. The “Monel” material that Lipton uses portrays a more rugged texture but resembles the traditional bronze material that sculptors once used. It is a dark material, possibly portraying a dark side to his life during the 70’s. Jimenez used more contemporary materials of fiberglass and paint. It is evident he placed many layers on the sculpture due to its strength and earnest structure. Jimenez also included illuminate bulbs in the eyes of both the longhorn and horse, possibly resembling the eyes of the devil in the horse or the hope of escape in the longhorn, similar to a predator prey relationship. In Jimenez’s Progress II, there is a cowboy roping a longhorn. The motion of the sculpture portrays the longhorn as trying to get away but being held back due to the rope and strength of the cowboy. In the center of the sculpture is an owl overlooking a rabbit and footprints near a skull. All of these contrasting items suggest a parasitic type of relationship with one of the items benefitting and the other receiving harm. Lipton’s piece is almost column-like in its figure. Originally I found it as a sculpture where you could see the inside of an object and it’s cross section, but after visiting a second time and truly thinking about its title Guardian, I found it to look more human like with the hollowed sphere resembling a helmet, a protection to the personified “human” underneath. The long column is representative of a torso and legs and is firmly planted to the ground, showing unfading strength. Disregarding the glowing eyes of the longhorn and the horse, Jimenez portrays the cowboy and the rest of the animal’s bodies rather naturalistically. The viewer is easily able to see the muscles and bone structure in these items, especially the longhorn. The ribs and ripples are overly defined on this slender animal. The face of the horse and cowboy are almost exact to that of a live horse and cowboy. The cowboy and animals are proportioned to look realistic, but not necessarily idealized as in works of Greek sculptors pursuing ideal beauty. The longhorn almost looks malnourished due to its bony body and backside, whereas the ideal creature would only be the most muscular animal possible. On the contrast, the cowboy appears to be not as “fit” as the ideal man. He is shown with muscle definition and has the strength to capture the longhorn, however when I looked more closely he seemed to have a very stern face as if struggling to hold onto the animal. While Luis Jimenez’s Progress II is more intricate and depicted than Seymour Lipton’s Guardian, it leaves the viewer’s mind to a different sort of interpretation. I found the entire piece to show a predator-prey relationship with the cowboy capturing the longhorn and the owl stalking the rabbit. Given naturalistic figures my mind was left to wonder why Luis Jimenez crafted in the way he did. The piece is titled Progress however I personally got the opposite message from it. The longhorn is being restricted, the rabbit is about to be attacked by the owl, and there is a skull in the footsteps of a human portraying death. It shows the struggle while achieving progress and various obstacles hindering the path to success. Lipton left his piece into almost complete interpretation of the viewer. The metal scraps are rugged and are not representative of a human at all. Sculptures were traditionally from bronze or marble and although the metal resembles bronze, the scraps as a whole are a whole different perspective of the human body. The first time I saw the sculpture I thought it took a column-like shape and resembled strength. Upon visiting it again I was more clearly able to see the humanistic characteristics. The featured helmet suggests protection, similar to that of a guardian angel. After carefully looking at these two pieces of art multiple times, I have found that the clear subject of Luis Jimenez’s work provides a more distinct insight to style, subject matter, and purpose. The abstract metonymy work of Seymour Lipton allows the viewer’s mind to take its own path to interpretation and meaning. Whether a clear subject or anonymous figure these pieces of art take on great beauty and contain powerful messages.