Holly Miller

Holly Miller

Blog 3

In this painting, I see a mother and fairly new baby. When I see this new baby, it makes me think of where he just came from and what he is used to. The baby just came from a warm, dark place. Always fed and constantly being cared for in the mother’s womb with the comforting beat of her heart. When he was born, he was pulled out of his warm, dark, comfortable place. He was unpleasantly greeted with lights in his eyes, and also being poked and prodded in every place imaginable. He is unable to communicate his needs. He looks at his mother in hopes she will understand his cries.

In this painting, the baby is being held by his mother and the mother looks a bit concerned. This makes me think that she must be running out of options on how to get her baby to stop crying. She is not making him a bottle or changing his diaper. She is just trying to comfort the baby. The baby is still crying because he is probably uncomfortable and wants the mother to do something, but she cannot. She has tried everything and all she can do is hold him close in hopes his discomfort goes away.

In this blog I was trying to do what Berger suggests and read more into the painting. I did not look up any information about the painting so that I was not steered to look at it differently than I first did. I thought this was really fun because after describing what I saw in the painting, rather than just looking at it, I could almost see a story instead of a still picture. There are many different ways of looking at this photo. For example, the mom could have been fed up with the baby. This is a risk of adding my story to this painting. People could completely disagree with what I see.

''Holly did a good job of taking Berger’s advice to heart. While it may read as just a description of the picture, she digs deeper and sees that within this picture is a story. A story not so much told as suggested to the audience. This deeper look at the painting is right up Berger’s alley. In some ways, the audience take on a piece is just as, if not more important, than the artists intentions. Holly brings that idea out when she says ''“This is a risk of adding my story to this painting. People could completely disagree with what I see.”'', and that too is the risk of painting: people could completely disagree with your own message. Something Berger praised.''