Eruption Of The Volcano Vesuvius

With regard to contemporary art, it is hard to determine what is pleasing and what will be remembered due to the sheer volume of opinions. Therefore, we must go back to an earlier age to identify what makes an artwork last. From the cross-cultural comparison of the art pieces, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius, I synthesized the theory that art, that of which is considered truly pleasing, can stand the test of time regardless of its origin.
Both of these art pieces are from different cultures but are from the same time period, so the question that arises is how did these two pieces manage to stay pleasing?
The first question that must be answered is, what is pleasing? Similar to Hume’s Standard of Taste, we …show more content…
Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius was painted during the romanticism era of art and has been depicted as a piece that shows both the interesting, horrific, and majestic side of a volcano eruption. The painting is meant to inflict emotions of awe and dread to its viewers, and it certainly does so from the destructive nature of a volcano, yet the power of a natural disaster is always something that can cause astonishment. Its effectiveness of relating to so many viewers through the emotions of awe and dread, as well viewers from different locations or time periods since natural disasters are global and perennial, shows that it passes the empirical and general rules of the …show more content…
In the context of its time, this painting was created during a time of new isolationism in Japan which is shown in the painting through the solitude of Mount Fuji among the huge rogue waves. Even though Mount Fuji is the center of this piece, the overwhelming size of the waves is meant to capture the qualities of yin and yang that identifies with spiritual beliefs and experiences of the Japanese. Through its ability to connect with the Japanese culture, this piece satisfies the rule of being empirical based off the experience it relates to the viewers. Its method of satisfying the general is slightly different from Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius because it is not able to relate to all people in a cultural fashion. Similar to the Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius, the size of the waves reminds us of the destructive and awesome power of nature. However, with the Great Wave off Kanagawa its general satisfaction comes from it actual appeal. The massive rogue waves in this piece are perfectly portioned to be Fibonacci numbers which has been called “the golden ratio” because of how visually pleasing it is. In a sense, this piece of art satisfies the rule of being general by actually being perfect