Reflection of Art

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Yue Sun Art 100-201 Professor: Lois Bender July 9, 2012 Earthworks Art derives from life but it is beyond life. When I watched the image of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, the first thing that appeared in my mind was a lollipop. This sculpture consists of several continuous circles. You can imagine if you suddenly see this mysterious spiral shape in a vast beach, you must be surprised and shocked. It’s like a relic from ancient or a path which a snail just walked on. Nature things are always better than artificial material. And the earthworks are absolutely natural. The spiral jetty was built entirely of mud, salt crystal, basalt rocks, earth, and water on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake. The other thing is that this sculpture is really giant. It forms a 1,500-foot-long (460 m), 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake. Smithson must spend a long time working on this sculpture. Also because of the huge shape, no one can bring it to any museums. But I have a question: how did people view this sculpture. Not everyone can take plane and fly around it. Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York. At the beginning of his career, he was good at painting. He primarily identified himself as a painter during this time. As for this sculpture, Smithson used the circle as the basic figure. Circle is not only simple but also

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