Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes Essay Example for Free

Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes Essay The painting Vertical Envelopment by Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes is obviously a modern painting that deals with the issues of technology, power, and war. These two Chicago based artist have displayed the power of the military through this painting. The painting symbolizes the stark reality that war is not a game, but a reality. The subject of the painting is that of a large black military helicopter that is centered in the painting. The bird’s eye view of the ground and the looming chopper, symbolizes the all knowing omnipresence of the military and through modern technology. The colors used to portray the ground are washed out yellow and gray. These colors represent the desert warfare or the Iraq War that the artists oppose. There is a black river that cuts through the painting like a half moon that is representative of lack of life. The medium used in Vertical Envelopment is aluminum and acrylic. Burtonwood and Holmes used the aluminum to give the feel of cold harsh metal of the weaponry. They chose acrylic paint because of its adherence to any type of surface. Any other paint would not have endured on the aluminum. The vividness of color would have been another reason that acrylics would have been chosen. The crisp black of the helicopter is essential to the painting. The style of Vertical Envelopment is more like that of social realism. It seems that this style would fit the painting because it is political in tone. One can tell by the dominance of the helicopter to the point that it is menacing and frightening, shows that the artists are against the war. They are also making the statement that machines are fighting the war and that is contrary to the idea that it is not the machines that are destroyed by war, but the people and the earth that are destraoyed. The lines used in Vertical Envelopment are mostly straight except for the river. The straight lines of the objects on the ground from a view much higher, gives a lifelessness of those objects. It looks as if there is order to what is going on at ground level, when nothing could be farther from the truth during war. The curved yet somewhat vertical lines of the river, give feeling of straying to those things that are straight. Burtonwood and Holmes also added vertical lines of gray and black to represent either gun fire or rain. This offsets that horizontal shape of the helicopter. The value of the painting is not one of luminosity. It is dull and drab, but that is for a reason. The artists do not want to add a glossed overview of war. The predominant color used in the painting is black. One reason it was chosen was that the main symbolic meaning of black is death which is a reality of war. The drab yellow and gray represents the lifeless earth after the ravages of war. The texture of Vertical Envelopment is smooth which is oppositional to the message that it presents on the negative aspects of war. Vertical Envelopment by Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes is one that speaks volumes to me. I feel that war is devastating to everyone involved and this particular is shows the harshness. There is a huge emphasis on the subject, the helicopter, and that says to me that war is like the metal and machinery of the helicopter. It is cold and unfeeling, yet it is powerful and destructive. It is difficult to run from it because of the vantage point that it has. The way that Burtonwood and Holmes emphasize the metal through their painting and the aluminum, strikes me because it makes their message so obvious yet innovative. This work of art speaks volumes to the viewer about the political situation of the world. ? Works Cited Burtonwood, Tom and Holmes, Holly. Vertical Envelopment. 2004.

The Argument for Celibacy Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Argument E

The Argument for Celibacy    How could someone explain America’s loosening view of sexual intercourse over recent decades? Have our moral standards changed so much that they now accept or even encourage frequent sex? Is it just a method of rebellion as people attempt to fight conservative societal views? Perhaps we just wish to fight those who instill inhibitive ideas on us, and our forms of freedom – in this case, that of our bodies. Has American media’s desire for revenue and profit caused an increased sway towards what was previously deemed inappropriate? Thomas Jefferson even once said that â€Å"man is an imitative animal†. Is America just experiencing a spontaneous hormone rush? Is it possible for a society to experience its own version of puberty? Or has America just always been horny and never shown it? After all, the 70-year-old chick from The Wedding Singer screwed the modern equivalent of 200 men before she got married, didn’t she? One can speculate on these ideas, probably others as well, and not really get anywhere. They’ve all contributed to modern attitudes towards sex. But beneath all the sexual innuendos of American entertainment, the social standards of acceptance based on sexual practices, and all of the Saturday night hoopla over who’s going to get laid first and how many beers it will take, there is a subtle current of those who look in the other direction. Imagine this – some people are actually happy without getting any. You can reread that last sentence if you have to. That’s why it’s there. Not all people consider it a priority to do push-ups the hard way every weekend. In fact, some consider it a priority not to. These people are celibates, and they’re not ashamed to admit it. They’re proud... ...any man-made laws, there is a strong value in preserving one’s virginity until marriage. But again, in our country, adhering to these principles is a matter of choice. Most choose not to, and find many forms of sex to be part of our culture, and completely acceptable to engage in. Some do not view it as such. While the celibate may not make his virginal state well-known, the values that influence its holding remain true and steadfast in his life, regardless of cultural and social change. Celibates are often ridiculed for not following societal views or conforming to popular culture. Anyone can argue as to whether or not these aspects of life are acceptable, but next time you think of a celibate in a ridiculing manner, ask yourself if you would have the courage and the integrity of one. Then try ridiculing. It could prove much harder than getting someone in the sack.

College Education Essay

It’s important to get a college education not only to be successful in the future but also to think for yourself and gain freedom through education, we can accomplish this by being educated liberally. Like Cronon, I think â€Å"a liberal education is about gaining the power and wisdom, the generosity and the freedom to connect† (Cronon; paragraph 18) to the real world. Finding a purpose to attend college should go beyond college itself, you should be motivated to learn something you have a passion for and will actually use and apply it to the world. †Truly educated people love learning, but they love wisdom more† (Cronon para 15). When learning you are just recycling information that the educators teach you just like Freire’s â€Å"banking system† but wisdom is what you incorporate to the â€Å"real world† and it is what is most valued than just being educated and not apply what you learned with other things. In my opinion liberal thinkers or people who are liberally educated want to be able to progress in life and not just do what they are told to do. They want to be able to think for themselves and come up with their own ideas. Liberal educated people want to â€Å"leave the world a better place than they had found it† (Cronon para 17). It takes wisdom and education to leave the world a better place than how it was before because it’s not an easy thing to do in a life time. Liberalists want to progress no just to benefit them but to benefit everyone else as well and I think they can accomplish this by using their wisdom and their college education. The way I see the banking system is that the educators are selfish because they only teach to their own convenience and they don’t let the receivers think for themselves. The receivers then don’t make any progress in life due to the fact that they are so used to just following the rules that are given to them by the educators. Liberal education is not like that. â€Å"Liberally educated people understand they belong to a community-and help that community flourish by making the success of others possible† (Cronon para 18). Liberalists want to succeed and want to see others succeed as well. â€Å"Liberal education must be that the freedom of the individual is possible only in a free community† (Cronon para18). When having the freedom you can think for yourself and not have others think for you like in a banking system and I personally think as well as Cronon explains that the only possible way to be gain freedom is by being liberally educated that way you learn to think for yourself and be able to be part of a free community. What is the whole point of going to college and get an education and when you graduate you will have no idea how to apply it or connect it to the real world. â€Å"Being an educated person means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways† (Cronon para 19). What’s the whole point of paying so much money for a college education if at the end you won’t know how to apply what you learned in college in the real world? If you don’t know how to apply things learned in college to the real world then you won’t be successful in the future and you practically gained no power or wisdom throughout your whole college education. Being educated can help you succeed in life and in the future if you know how to apply everything you learned in college to the real world once you graduate and help you and others succeed in your community and the real world. By being liberal educated can help you not only succeed in life but it can also help you gain freedom.

Gun Control and the Bill of Rights Essay - 710 Words

George Mason, a co-author of the Bill of Rights, said â€Å"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them† If this is true, why would anyone try to ban firearms in the U.S? Guns have been a part of American history since we declared independence from Britain in 1776. Many people believe that removing weapons from the hands of citizens is the only way to stop criminals from shooting down people at malls and kids at schools, but this is not the case. Outlawing guns is not the answer for effectively reducing gun crime. According to Wikipedia, a firearm is a portable gun, being a barreled weapon that launches one or more projectiles often driven by the action of an explosive force. The first firearms were invented in†¦show more content†¦Murder by knives was first, followed by clubs, then strangulation. It seems that by banning guns, people used other ways to kill. On the other hand, Switzerland’s gun policy is very different than other nations. It requires all men to go through militia training at age twenty and issue an assault rifle when they complete it. Switzerland has the lowest gun crime rates in the world, despite giving everyone a high-powered, fully automatic firearm. Another hot-topic that politicians debate about is allowing assault rifles, or select-fire guns (capable of semi-automatic or fully automatic fire),which have the ability to shoot rounds as long as you can hold the trigger down, in the hand of American citizens. Currently, eight states have banned owning assault weapons in some sense. Some may argue that these guns are overkill, and aren’t practical for hunting or self-defense, whereas other firearms fill that position well. In some cases that might be true, but if multiple intruders enter your home armed, a pistol with a low-capacity clip may not suffice. Contrary to popular belief, gun crime has dropped significantly over the past 20 years. Since 1993, violence involving guns has gone down 49% according to Pew Research. The media is to blame for sensationalizing shootings and with the internet’s influence an argument that got out of hand can be seen as an all out battle. The SecondShow MoreRelatedBill Rights Essay : Gun Control 1025 Words   |  5 Pages2015 Bill Rights Essay: Gun Control In the past decade our society has contemplated whether guns should be permissible to be held at all times. Gun control is now one of the main political issues because of all the shootings in the past decade. It has shown that there have been about 30,000 gun incidents in the years between 2010-2015. 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