Dublin Study Trip
Study trips are meant for the students to experience and learn new things and cultures as a group and thus get to know each other better. In other words gain knowledge by being in new types of situations and solving any problems that would come up. Our teachers took the advantage and decided for us all that we should go to Dublin. It would be a trip to remember. However, this essay is not focusing on the fun parts of our trip. It focuses on the visits to the museums, the art galleries and the institutions of education. One of these was the amazing Trinity College. It contains a library with books that are over 400 years old. But as in any other regular museum, these were only exhibition. Nevertheless, we were able to take a look back in time, and see the precision, effort and overall astounding work that it took to do what now a day is art, and as this, is priceless. The National Museum had various historical treasures from different periods. You can almost feel how this place reaches out for your attention. I would say that this museum was the place in Ireland that provided us with most knowledge about its people and their search for freedom and independence through out the history.
Art can transmit knowledge in a way no other media can. It transmits the feelings and thoughts of the artists in such a way that it subconsciously gets to your soul and makes you really think about it. The idea of art in general is to give a message to the world / community / majority that cannot be posted in normal prose. Poems and paintings tend to stick more strongly to peoples minds, than that article you read in the newspaper 2 years, 3 months and 8 days ago. The problem with art is that people have a tendency to manipulate with it. E.g. the revolutionists in Russia and Germany who ordered artists to make their art pro-government. It demolished the individuality and idea of portraying emotions to paper. Also nowadays people just take a bucket of paint, slobber it over a wall and say “Voila!!….ART!!”There doesn’t seem to be any universal standard to how you can convey art in today’s society, and it probably has something to do with all the “political correctness”. People
Can’t voice their opinion against someone else’s “work of art”, because the artist at hand might have had an intention that critics can’t see (or don’t want to see). There are a hundred different mindsets, that all have different opinions, different ideas, and different views.That’s why some would say that art has lost its originality, its beauty, its individuality, and its essence.
Dublin as a city provides knowledge in various ways. For example we learn about the everyday practical things, like the traffic system or the customs, and traditions.The Irish traffic system is challenging in the manner that you have to be on your toes, when you’re outside. If you hold your life dear. It’s a jungle out there, every man and woman for oneself. In cars, on foot, on bikes, everything. Our opinion of the Irish school is that it’s more or less the same as Denmark. Irish pubs and beer impresses the student on this study trip. The environment of the Temple Bar Area really seemed to give you the strength / will to ask for something to drink, even though you were under 18 and hadn’t had a drink before. The people aren’t that hospitable over there. We had had several incidents with rudeness showing its hideous face. Mostly in the public service area.It was practical knowledge that we obtained from going on a study trip, just as it had been suspected from the beginning. Now, is visiting Ireland really the best way to learn about it? 10 years ago it would have been. Now a day, electronic communication is everything. Through the internet we can experience just as much (and many times even more) than when physically going abroad where you have a limited time and considerably higher expenses. Adding these advantages to the ones we’ve had for centuries (books, etc), we have something that realistically could replace physical travel when it comes to knowledge. Though, there were still things we couldn’t have found out from anywhere but in Ireland itself, FX. We had no idea that Irish hospitality was on a vacation in the period we were in Ireland. No tourist-information brochure would ever brag about their lack of hospitality.
To sum up, we did have an interesting trip. We didn’t go unprepared to Ireland; we had acquired knowledge about Dublin by reading tourist-websites, doing assignments, tests, and analysed maps on Dublin. The Celtic heritage with the language, Gaelic, was fairly unnoticeable. Only in the morning with the children’s television shows would we discover the use of the Gaelic language, but that probably has something to do with the areas we went to. The history of Ireland has been a life in turmoil by British imperialists ever since the 13th Century and up till 1922, where Ireland signs a treaty with England. The knowledge we acquired in this trip, both under the planning and on the trip itself was, to start with, theoretical, like the knowledge we are used to get in the classroom, to then be witness of the real thing by visiting the places where history has been written.
Art group work: The National Gallery of Ireland. By Eric Vester and Nan Shao.To do this assignment, we choose a piece of art of James Arthur O’Connor titled “A Thunderstorm: The frightened Wagoner” from 1832. The subject described in this piece of art is fear to the might of nature. We are presented in the painting with a remote and apparently very old forest. In middle of this forest is a Wagoner with his frightened horses. We can see that proportions of the subjects in this painting vary a lot. The tree at the left side of the painting occupies nearly half of the piece of art, while the main characters of the painting, the Wagoner with his horses, are presented tiny at the center of the painting. Tiny in relationship to the mighty tree. Then we have the lightning. Coming from the top of the mountain, illuminating the sky in the middle of the night, letting the surroundings show its color. The sudden rumble disturbs the Wagoner and his horses that are walking against the wind. That’s why I would say that the subject of the painting is to point out our position in nature and our fear to it. While looking at this picture you realize the power of nature, and you are reminded of a basic norm of life: To respect Mother Nature.
One could say that there is a religious idea/message in O’Connor’s storm, in the way that it could be interpreted as a signal, message or warning from a divine being.Personally, I consider this work of art to be magnificent. The way the nature is portrayed induces respect. The colors and shadows are perfectly brought about so that you can see How the artist has caught the light of the lightning. There’s just enough light to show the moment of fear and surprise of the Wagoner and his horses, and still leave mysterious dark places which collaborate to the fearful mood of the painting.The paintings of The National Gallery and The National Museum are consider great pieces of art because they communicate you emotions and feelings in a way no other form of communication can. You could say that it touches you deep inside reaching your soul. They are great pieces of art because they capture a special moment in time and space which you could stand and watch for hours, trying to figure out what the artist was thinking in the moment he painted it. What was his inspiration?
