Alfred Bierstadt, John Muir, and More!

 

    One thing I saw this week was Alfred Bierstadt's paintings in class. After seeing these images, I was amazed by the amount of detail and skill that went into each one. I have heard of Bierstadt briefly before; however, I have never looked into his work. I found it interesting to think about the fact that this was the main form of viewing things, since photography did not exist at this point. This, along with the work it would take to carry all of those art supplies!

    Something--or rather someone--I learned about this week was John Muir. Before this class, I had no clue he even existed, so this was a big jump in knowledge for me. Learning about his life on a farm made sense, along with his overly strict father. I think that the most intriguing piece of information that was offered about Muir was the fact that he worked in a factory inventing things for a period of time in his life. This is so contradictory to his entire later life's goal that it is rather jarring to think about. However, it does make sense that he had an epiphany when he injured his eye in the factory. If you grew up with nature as your refuge and you were seriously injured, I would think you would want to return to the great outdoors as well.

A connection I made to the pillar classes I have taken was the financial demand of Hetch Hetchy Valley and how this affected what happened to it. This connects with My microeconomics class. While the Hetch Hetchy Valley was inevitably flooded for creating a drinking water source, this had a financial root at its core. Without the drinking water, people would not want to live in San Fransisco (where the water was going). This would affect the overall financial health of  San Fransisco. If people were leaving at a large rate, then there would not be a great deal of financial stability at all. This relates to supply and demand in my microeconomics class. If the supply isn't there, then the demand will look for other suppliers (who will then get to hike up the prices), Another connection I made that isn't for CAP 300 but that I wanted to share is about the philosophy of the sublime. I took Contemporary Critical Theory for art, and for this, we had to do studying outside of class. One of the philosophies I chose to study was the sublime, as we talked about it briefly in class. It intrigued me, so I looked into it more. I ended up falling in love with the idea, and I was very excited to hear about it being brought up in class.