| Title | Creator | Date | Era | City |
Country |
Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tzena Tzena Tzena | Miron - Parish: | 1941 | 1900s | Israel |
Joyous celebration |
Joyous celebration |
||
| 3 Idiots | Screenwriter: Chopra Vidhu Vinod | 2009 | 1991-2010 | India |
Life can be fun and productive and exciting. As is true in some other Bollywood features, this story and the ideas behind it about pursuing the good life, has an honesty and clarity and benevolence that is not part of the U.S. movie scene. |
Be what you want to be; follow your passion in life |
||
| Ferrari Dino 246 GT | Designer: Enzo Ferrari | 1969 | Italy |
The world is a place of speed and elegance. |
||||
| Green fabric | Designer: Mariano Fortuny | circa 1920 | Italy |
Still produced by the Fortuny fabric company. |
||||
| David | Sculptor: Michelangelo Buonarotti | 1504 | 1500s | Florence | Italy |
Man is a strong, indomitable creature who has the intelligence to overcome terrible odds. |
[requires assumption of some context of this work -- not a "cold" introduction to it]: A man able to face a daunting task, with tremulous calm and determination. This is the depiction of the David/Goliath story of the Bible in which David takes on the much more formidable Goliath and wins. |
|
| Pirelli Calendar Diver | Photographer: Uwe Ommer | 1984 | Italy |
Women can be strong, dynamic and unconsciously beautiful. |
||||
| Black Stallion | Director: Carroll Ballard | 1979 | Sardinia | Italy |
Everything is possible between boy and beast, between an innocent human and mother nature. |
Man and nature in harmony. At least this is the theme of the first half of the movie. See "Description" and "Context" info below for more on this comment. |
||
| Niobe | Sculptor: unknown | c. 200 BC | Rome | Italy |
Human action is beautiful. |
Life is movement. |
||
| Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (aria from La Wally) | Composer: Alfredo Catalani | 1892 | 1851-1900 | Milan | Italy |
Longing is the overall emotional tone of the music. The lyric gives reason to this overall tone. |
Sadness at having to leave forever the place where you were happy once. |
|
| Wisdom and Strength | Painter: Paolo Veronese | 1580c | 1500s | Venice? | Italy |
Sumptuousness is good, and the human form is good. |
||
| Three Graces | Sculptor: Antonio Canova | 1814 | 1800s | Italy |
The female human form is beautiful, graceful, ideal. |
Quiet repose and sisterly love. The piece exudes a quiet elegance and peacefulness amidst the complex three-dimensional composition. The inclusion of "sisterly love" is less certain, except that taking into account the mythological background of the piece. It can be argued that one should not take that into account, so perhaps that should not formally be included in the theme. |
||
| Old Man with a Young Boy | Painter: Domenico Ghirlandaio | 1490 | 1400s | Florence | Italy |
Human companionship or family closeness is real. |
Quiet familial love. (A grandfather (perhaps) gazing upon a grandson, and vice versa, in a clear moment of happy communion.) |
|
| Monster, The | Director: Roberto Benigni | 1994 | 1991-2010 | Italy |
Just laughter and more of the same. |
|||
| Laocoon (Laocoön and His Sons) | Sculptor: Agesander | 1st century BCE to 1st century CE | 500 BCE - 1 CE | Rome | Italy |
Life is a desperate, agonizing struggle. |
The heroic but agonizing defeat of Men. This sculpture certainly represents at the same time the heroic nature of men but cast into an impossible situation that can only be tragic. |
|
| La Gomena (Towing a Boat) | Painter: Ettore Tito | 1909 | 1900s | Italy |
There is great effort in life, and a woman can be the master of it. This painting is a curious combination of romantic heroism and 19th century genre naturalism. It has a visual dynamism and dramatic content that is strongly romantic, yet the subject is the prosaic task of pulling a boat out of the water. |
The will and the power of a woman. Implacable determination. |
||
| Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo (Royal Church of St. Lawrence) | Architect: Guarino Guarini | 1680 | 1600s | Torino (Turin) | Italy |
The world is perfected. The joy of seeing complexity that is simplicity, i.e., that the rich complex vision arises from simple elements which because of their arrangement provide layers of visual thrills. |
Complex, soaring geometric order. |
|
| Confectionary Basket from Japan, Fukui region | Designer: Anonymous | unknown | Japan |
Life can be dynamic and purposeful and intriguing -- because of the dynamic form and economy of materials and diagonal symmetry of the composition. |
||||
| Crane Under the Rain | Ohara, Shoson: | 1928 | 1900s | Japan |
Life is difficult. |
|||
| Rashomon | Director: Akira Kurosawa | 1950 | 1931-1950 | Japan |
The world is terrible and full of disasters and mankind is awful and pathetic. |
Objectivity is a myth -- everyone sees a different reality, a different "story". |
||
| Senso-ju Temple at Asakusa | Hiroshige: | 1840s c | 1800s | Tokyo | Japan |
Pure, simple, quiet tranquility. |
||
| Composition with Red Yellow Blue and Black | Painter: Piet Mondrian | 1921 | The Hague | Netherlands |
[Seems mute] |
|||
| Sports March | Singing Group: Soviet Army Chorus and Band | unknown mid-20th century | 1900s | Russia |
Happiness triumphs. |
The power of joy to motivate action. |
||
| Othello: the Moor of Venice | Playwright: William Shakespeare | 1603 | 1600s | Stratford-on-Avon | United Kingdom |
Malevolence and horrible tragedy is unrelieved. Evil is potent. |
A great man can be gullible and controlled by an evil character. Or, an evil character can have potency in the world, because of the weakness of a good man. |
|
| Trustee from the Toolroom | Author: Nevil Shute | 1960 | United Kingdom |
A feeling of gentleness, kindness and generosity towards good people in the world. |
The importance of pursuing one's personal values. |
|||
| Rembrandt | Director: Korda Alexander | 1936 | 1931-1950 | United Kingdom |
Life is hard as an independent spirit, and wealth will elude you, but you will be happy, after a fashion. |
