Visual Culture Database Form ARTE 344/544 Fall 2023

Provider: Lauren Anhalt

VCDB #:
3
Big
Idea/Subject:
Suffering
Major
Theme:
War and
Societal
Unrest
Medium/
Size:
Digital,
2179px x
2454 px
Visual
Components:
Direction,
Movement,
Contrast,
Color, Form,
Scale
Category:
Fine Arts
Authorship: Garis Edelweiss
Title of work: “Song of the Sky”
Location of Online Only
work:
Description: This piece depicts a large upside down dove falling from a smoky sky, carrying a
burning olive branch in its beak. The dove also appears to be burning up as well from
a ripped hole in it’s chest. It is unclear if the dove is supposed to be alive or not. Next
to the dove there is a very small human figure playing the piano, seemingly unaware
of the chaos happening next to him. The figure is a silhouette, faceless and
unidentifiable, with no discernable expression.
Interpretatio My interpretation of this painting is that it is a commentary on a few different social
n: ideas. The most obvious and blatantly stated in the image is about war, and how a
flying dove holding an olive branch usually signifies peace and prosperity, the dove
here is instead free-falling while being engulfed in smoke. I am taking this to mean
that a lack of peace in the world has gotten so great, that the olive branch has caught
fire to both itself and the dove who carries it. The dove, unwavering, holds the branch
still in its beak, committed to trying to keep the peace at all costs, but is seemingly
hopeless as it is close to the ground, or a “point of no return” in terms of the amount
of unrest in the world. The once blue sky is now dark and smoky, signifying that the
dove has been falling in smoke for a long, long time, showing how the lack of peace
has been ongoing for a long while. My second observation is the pianist on the left
side, which I am taking in my own interpretation to mean a lack of care or awareness
from humanity to the issues we have created. It can be interpreted as both positive or
negative, either with humanity playing the piano and keeping on persevering through
dark times, or as ignorance and total disregard for what we have done to our world
and ourselves, drowning out the suffering with “piano music”, or distractions in our
everyday lives to help us not see the bigger issues at hand.
Use in A lesson that may include this painting might be for me to ask students to create an
Teaching(Les illustration of a popular societal metaphor or symbol turned “upside down” like the
son Idea and dove, and how students would depict the metaphor literally. I think that having
medium) students use digital tools to make this artwork would be a great challenge, but also a
great benefit as they can play with scale and a variety of texture in their artwork to
make it feel more visually complex. I would want the students to use as little text as
possible, or ideally none at all, so that their visual depiction would be more creative
and thought out to get their idea across to viewers.
3-5 Guiding - What expression do you see on the dove’s face? Do you think it is meant to feel
Questions: anything?
- Do you think the pianist being so much smaller than the dove is important,
and how would the meaning of the piece change if the dove was the smaller
element?
- What do you think the burning hole in the dove’s chest signifies, do you think
it is because of the dove, humanity, or something else?
- Why do you think the dove is not struggling to regain flight, or maintain
peace?
Image Source https://www.instagram.com/p/CkPL9oxPAiP/
(url):