Friday, December 4, 2020


 What do you think the world is like after death? Cuban artist Alejandro Aguilera gave his comprehension, the painting "Aurelio (Life After Death)", created in 2009.  This is an abstract painting. It uses blue as the background and some white spots.  This creates the tone of a mysterious atmosphere.  White and yellow horizontal lines traverse the entire image, while red triangles hang on some horizontal lines.  The composition of the picture is very full. In the center of the picture, many bright orange and yellow brushstrokes are projected downward like a beam of light.  This shows that what the author thinks of the world after death is not gray and monotonous, but colorful.  The pale white letters at the bottom right corner of the image read "born after death."

The picture is basically composed of simple geometry, so there will be a lot of room for the audience to understand it.  On the other hand, the whole painting presents geometric inversion, which may imply another world after death. For the author, death means a new beginning, the beginning of another way of life.

Cuban artists are good at using various media and methods to draw inspiration from the environment, whether from literature, culture or politics.  The rich and diverse visual vocabulary used by the artist reflects the diverse culture and ethnicity of the Cuban population. Cultural diversity provides more possibilities for Cuban artists. Their openness and tolerance will be reflected in their works. The collision of different elements and the interweaving of different ideas are a process of seeking common ground while reserving differences. What the world looks like after death is a topic that is often discussed. When people still exist in this world, it is meaningful, and when people die, whether there is meaning, especially those who have made outstanding contributions today, or for those who still exist, will their meaning not disappear? This is also the meaning of the world after death.



3 comments:

  1. I think your description on this painting is quite successful. You use several sentences let people know the structure of the painting. The inverses frame and the color really shows the different understanding that the artist have to “death.” For your introduce about the Cuban artists I think you can out them into the front. I really like your discussion on the death of those great people. “Born before death” of course. The ending of a live is death but the meaning of a live will never disappear. In the painting, I also can see some faces. So maybe the world after death is totally different from the world we understand, but I also can be colorful.

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  2. Your first sentence of this review really grabbed my attention and made me want to read it; the afterlife is such an intriguing and mysterious topic. I think you do a great job describing the work in the first paragraph, and also do well in the last paragraph providing some information about the cultural practices of Cuban artists. I wonder though, how could you dive deeper into the meaning of the painting? Your second paragraph provides a couple sentences about potential meanings, but I wonder if you could dig into the analysis a little deeper there. One other thing I wanted to mention is the last long question in the review gets confusing to read and I lose the meaning. Could you try rephrasing this in a different way, and maybe breaking it up into more than one sentence so it's easier to understand?

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  3. As you talk about the topic of “life after death” in the painting, it is very amazing and interesting to see how different cultures have various attitudes and imagination of the world after death, especially in this painting. I agree with you that the author uses bright, joyful color and simple dynamic strokes to describe the world connecting the death and live in an abstract way. Your response is informative, but I am also curious about how the color and the repeating form of inversed triangle relates to the religious or cultural meanings in Cuba. It is also nice to have more explanation about the collision of different elements in the painting for readers who are not familiar with the Cuban culture.

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