Today’s blog entry is an observation and analysis of an object from the Joukowsky Institute’s “Vault”, the secure storage area for the Institute’s permanent collection. As I did in my last blog post, I’m going to be using a format based on guidelines provided by JIAAW doctoral candidate Emily Booker to create my analysis of this statue. I will be using 3 out of her 7 categories of analysis today.
This artifact caught my eye because it looks like a fairly detailed artifact with a good amount of weight given its size. It seems to be depicting a Red-shouldered Hawk, but it’s difficult to know for certain.
We are going to get started by using “Line” to analyze this artifact. This artifact is very detailed and has many grooves depicting the feathers of the bird. The details in the feathers of the bird look like they were sharp, but now they are washed out though still noticeable. The neck of the creature looks rather long for a bird in flight, and the head is almost smoothed off. You are able to see where the eyes sat before being eroded away by time.
The next category we will talk about is the “Scale” of the artifact. This artifact is pretty small. Even though it’s so small, it still has a good amount of weight to it. It could be that I was wrong about my guess at what kind of bird it is, and it’s actually depicting a smaller species of bird. The size of the artifact makes you really have to look at it to see all the individual details that might be missed by a glance.
Lastly, we are going to talk about the “Texture” of the artifact. Judging from the feel and weight of the artifact, I believe it’s made from some sort of metal. I’m guessing that it was made of bronze due to the slight brownish gold color forming under the original blackish gray color. I noticed on the chest of the artifact there’s a hole. This most likely means that the artifact had some sort of stand holding it up. As you can see, the artist decided to not give the artifact any legs to give the illusion of flight when being held up by the stand.