Hello! Here is my UVA short answer for a piece of art which has shocked/unsettled and why. I really need help with flow and grammar, and basically your overall opinion of the essay. Thanks!
The Disasters of War. In no other work of art have I ever witnessed etchings so full of malice and darkness. Whether it is a decapitated head resting atop a tree branch or a mangled body swinging from a noose, Spanish artist Francisco de Goya prods me to take a deeper look at the savagery which coincides with warfare. What atrocities this deaf artist must have experienced, as the grotesque portrayals in his black and white etchings illustrate the superfluous bloodshed as well as Goya's disgust with human nature.
I came across a number of these diminutive prints lodged between much larger and more ornate paintings and frames while scavenging at a local thrift store. Absorbed by the bleak and minute details; the horror-struck expressions on the faces of its subjects disturbed me. The pain and anguish evident as women fought soldiers to save themselves from rape, and men perish on heaps of human bodies. Never before had I been exposed to such gory art. Print after print, unperturbed by the dust which had collected over the years, I observed the idiocy of war and the innate darkness which lies in the core of every man. The portraits' capacity to unsettle lies in Francisco de Goya's distaste for the nature of war and its ability to transform men into inhumane beasts. To this day, gazing at "this is worse", an etching of a man impaled on a tree, I cannot help but feel a disturbing tingling at the complete abandonment of moral values. (253/250)
The Disasters of War. In no other work of art have I ever witnessed etchings so full of malice and darkness. Whether it is a decapitated head resting atop a tree branch or a mangled body swinging from a noose, Spanish artist Francisco de Goya prods me to take a deeper look at the savagery which coincides with warfare. What atrocities this deaf artist must have experienced, as the grotesque portrayals in his black and white etchings illustrate the superfluous bloodshed as well as Goya's disgust with human nature.
I came across a number of these diminutive prints lodged between much larger and more ornate paintings and frames while scavenging at a local thrift store. Absorbed by the bleak and minute details; the horror-struck expressions on the faces of its subjects disturbed me. The pain and anguish evident as women fought soldiers to save themselves from rape, and men perish on heaps of human bodies. Never before had I been exposed to such gory art. Print after print, unperturbed by the dust which had collected over the years, I observed the idiocy of war and the innate darkness which lies in the core of every man. The portraits' capacity to unsettle lies in Francisco de Goya's distaste for the nature of war and its ability to transform men into inhumane beasts. To this day, gazing at "this is worse", an etching of a man impaled on a tree, I cannot help but feel a disturbing tingling at the complete abandonment of moral values. (253/250)