One of the main themes seen throughout the exhibition was realism. For instance, the artists featured in the gallery made viewers take a step back to look at the history of how our world is today. Some of the art pieces made in the exhibit by Tamara Kostianovsky and Sharon Core as well as Wayne Thiebaud can relate to the work of artists featured in our Stokstad textbook like Rachel Ruysch and Gianlorenzo Bernini.
The figure to the left is a painting made by Rachel Ruysch, FLOWER STILL LIFE, after 1700. As stated from the textbook, “ Ruysch created an asymmetrical floral arrangement of pale colors rising from lower left to top right of the picture, offset by the strong diagonal of the tabletop. To further balance the painting, she placed highlighted blossoms and leaves on the dark left half of the canvas and silhouetted them against the light wall area on the right.” (Stokstad, p.768) This connects to realism being that artists would make flower portraits, basing them off from real flowers and bringing different types of flowers together as one. Even if the flowers were not in season, further representing how things in life may not always be in sinc, however, we need to be aware of how it contributes to society. As Ruysch plays with her arrangement and use of colors, Tamara Kostianovsky played with her old fabrics and used them to create an animal carcass.
This art piece known as WHAT IT ONCE WAS was created by Tamara Kostianovsky in 2011. It’s made out of discarded clothing, metal hooks, and chains. Taken from an article written by CreativeBoom, Kostianovsky’s "intention was to confront the viewers with the real and grotesque nature of violence, reflecting the vulnerability of our physical existences." When looking at this piece, I was intrigued by its appearance. In similarity to Ruych, Tamara played with the lighting of fabrics highlighting body remains and studying real objects to create something to remind viewers that in a sense, we disregard “important” things. 
Bernini had a talent for creating dramatic masterpieces. For example, noted in Stokstad, his DAVID sculpture made in 1623 “introduced a new type of three-dimensional composition that intrudes forcefully into the viewer’s space.” (Stokstad, p.729-731) Here, Bernini makes a sculpture exploring realism, as if David is right in front of you, about to take action. One can see the tension and perseverance in his eyes and body. In similarity, when people are determined to do something, one can identify their will to reach the finish line. Like Ruych and Kostianovsky, Bernini makes the viewer look deeper into the meaning of the piece.
Sharon Core mader her FOUR HEART CAKES (FROM THE SERIES THIEBAUDS) in 2004. She created this piece as a tribute to Wayne Thiebauds, WEDDING CAKE made c.1962. Her piece at the bottom, is a picture of real cakes painted with the inspiration of Thiebauds wedding cake painting at the top. These two pieces caught my eye because the cakes looked delicious and after finding the story behind these two artists, made it even more interesting of how people can see the same thing at different angles and shape it into a new meaning. Core’s image has a real upfront and three-dimensional approach and Thiebauds’ image is depicted as a two-dimensional flat plane surface. Relating to how previous artists mentioned varied their use of light and color to achieve their final result to create pieces representing realism, not being afraid to showcase how the artists sees things as it is in their minds.
Works Cited:
Stokstad, Marilyn, and Michael Watt Cothren. Art History. Sixth ed., II, Pearson, 2018.
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