On October 30th 2017, my Digital Media Foundations classmates and I went on a trip to visit the Cooper Hewitt Museum. When I first saw the museum I honestly thought it looked big on the outside; it has an outside garden and it looked almost like a medieval church. Inside the museum, however, was quite small. It literally was 3 floors and each exhibit was closely nit together which surprised me.The visit was very intriguing and inspiring as well; I was able to see different styles of art and print and how they came about. The exhibiton that caught my eye was the Passion for the Exotic: Japonism. This exbition featured crafts inspired by Japanese art and aesthetics. During the 16th century, Asia’s trade was exposed the European public to new expression and ideas for their own nature of art. When i first walked into the exhbition all I could think of was how beautiful and exquisite the collection was; it felt like I was walking into an historic masterpiece filled the beauty of the japanese paintings displayed on the many vases or the design of the plates and how the floral design easily makes them pop out.

I really liked the the first vase that was created Tifanny and Co. which is a company located in New York. It gives not only a powerful aura but a unique and rich presence; its materials are gold silver copper and mixed metals. The design color is almost like burgundy, gold and black; it is small to see but to my eyes it looks like a bunch of petals scattered everywhere with black shadows surround them.

I also like this pitcher (second image). At first I thought it was a vase but it was actually a pitcher. I loved the colors; The blue, green then pale pink colors are very beautiful and give off an aesthetic vibe. I love how well the flowers were placed on the picture. But then I also love how the pitcher is made from hand-painted stoneware. I never knew they were made from thrown, glazed, and hand painted stoneware. It almost looks like a painting.

The last vase i really loved was the one Carved Dragon Vase. It was created by Maria Longworth Nichols and you would really think a japanese craftsman created this. It just screams japanese culture mainly because of the dragon; dragons are known to control the nature elements: earth, wind, fire, water, etc. The dragon almost looks as if it’s animated too; it crawling towards the top of the vase. It’s also hand-modeled which is mindblowing. The colors of the vase are so calming; the pale white and the spots of pale red. It kind of remind me of mountains in japan. The pale red lines made me envision the dragon scratching the vase as like it was actually climbing up the mountain. The vase is just so beautiful yet dynamic in my opinion.