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Arts Critique- Visual art

Yacin Cardenas

California State University, Monterey Bay

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Arts Critique- Visual Arts

On Monday April 17, three other classmates and I visited the national

Steinbeck center in Salinas, CA. The museum is located in old town Salinas

and just a couple blocks down from the museum John Steinbecks house is

located. Prior to attending the Steinbeck Center, I already knew what was

inside the museum since I did grow up in Salinas, and I constantly visit old

town Salinas. Being that I am used to this museum my expectations and

excitement was not high at all.

To begin, the museum mainly focuses on the life john Steinbeck had

while growing up and living in Salinas, CA. Being that the museum focuses

on John Steinbecks livelihood there is various art pieces from his most

popular books such as of Mice and Men, the art pieces ranged from collaged

to covers of the novels and posters. Being that there were various art pieces

they were distinct by the composition they hold such as oil painting and

cartoon like posters in which you can see the strokes of the pencil used to

create it. On the other hand, the oil based painting was more of a messy and

blurry image. I also want to mention that as you walk through old town

leading up the Steinbeck center most of the electrical boxes have paintings.

Fore example below is a picture of an electrical box which has my high

schools (Salinas high) football stadium. To me the intent of this panting was

to show the unity of the teenagers and community while supporting local

sports activities.
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Based on the elements of visual arts I would say all elements were

present all throughout the various art pieces in the Steinbeck center. Walking

through the front door of the museum part we can already see and art piece

which is a statue of John Steinbeck. This particular example demonstrates

craftsmanship and intent since the quality of the statue is very rigid and if

looking carefully can see remarks, and intent because the meaning of this is

to represent John Steinbeck. Also I noticed that the element of art mainly

focused on sketched out cartoon like images.

Furthermore, viewing and analyzing the different art pieces from

different artist within the museum I came to the conclusion that every artist

has a very distinct way to display their intent and have distinct techniques.

The piece that mostly caught my attention is the one with two theater mask

sketched out (picture below). This is one caught my eye because it showed

mood falling into intent, to mem these mask displayed the main genres of

theater which are comical and devastating scenarios. Another piece that

contrast to this is an oil painting that portrays an elder man. Although his

features are visible the whole painting has a like blur effect that makes it

hard to depict who this man is. Based on the location this painting was

displayed (Of Mice and Men) I can tell this man is a farmer or someone who

works the ag industry. In this picture I can tell the element of art because the

painting focuses on the man making all the other space negative. Another

piece that caught my attention was one that was being displayed from a

projector onto the carpet. Although tis made it hard to visualize I can tell that
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the intent behind it is the way John Steinbeck lived and to me it looks like

they are on a bed.

In conclusion, prior to my opinion of the Steinbeck and the expectation

I had I can say that I was wrong and had forgotten how much fun the

museum is actually. Even though there is not a lot to visualize there are

many key factors such as paintings and visual elements that help piece out

who John Steinbeck was, overall I would say this critique was quite enjoyable

since I was able to analyze the art displayed within the museum and the one

in the streets of old town Salinas, CA. I highly recommend visiting the

Steinbeck museum!
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