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Before our tour of the Ackland Art Museum it wasn’t clear to me what an english class could learn from looking at artwork. However, my group had a wonderful tour guide who provided insight into how the concept of adaptation can be applied to paintings. The two most memorable paintings for me were Looking at the Sea and Eve and the Serpent.

Looking at the Sea is an abstract painting, and initially I did not realize that it could be depicting the ocean. When I first saw this painting I thought it looked like someone had tossed a stone into a pond. I also thought the streaks of tan and orange in the upper corner was a reflection of objects on the pond’s shore. Once our tour guide explained that the artist’s title indicates it could be seen as the unruly sea I saw the painting in a different light. Suddenly the swirls of blue at the bottom of the canvas looked like waves in the ocean, and my mind was immediately taken back to the story of Robinson Crusoe attempting to sail in the storm. This experience caused me to reflect on the term adaptation in regards to abstract paintings. Since abstract art does not directly depict an image the meaning of the work can be interpreted by the viewer. If I was viewing this painting alone I might have never considered the painting to look like the sea if I didn’t read the title Looking at the Sea. If an adaptation reframes a work would different interpretations of what is shown in abstract art be considered the beginnings of adaptation?

Our group looked at Eve and the Serpent after viewing another painting that depicted the story of Adam and Eve. I thought this painting was an intriguing adaptation of the biblical story and the bright colors captured my attention. At first I was unsure about the author’s motivation for choosing to paint Eve as an African American, but our tour guide addressed this concept by explaining that the painting’s title references the slave song “Dem Bones”. Once I knew about the slave spiritual I could see that this adaption reframed the story of Adam and Eve to reference the ideals of social injustice and slavery. Perhaps Rose Piper’s choice of not including Adam in this painting also represents a message about oppression, but instead focuses on the oppression of women, not just African Americans. Adam’s absence could represent the strong independence of women from the oppression of men. Overall I thought the trip to the Ackland was very insightful and helped me realize how a painting, without the supplementary details movies and books provide, can be an adaptation that sends a unique and detailed message from its creator about the source referenced or societal ideals.

The most interested piece of artwork I saw at the Ackland Art Museum was Eve and the Serpent by Rose Piper. This painting depicts the version of the biblical creation story that is told through the slave spiritual “Dem Bones (Gonna Rise Again).” Besides the painting’s title and the author’s choice to represent Eve as an African American, the only distinctive feature of this painting that nods to the song is the serpent’s winking eye.

In many adaptations of the creation story, Eve is often portrayed as intentionally disobedient or naïve and child-like. However, in this painting, Eve is dignified. Her posture is that of a confident woman, and even the animals are drawn to her. In this adaptation, she also seems more curious in the serpent than in the fruit. This painting depicts the moments just before Eve takes the forbidden fruit and while the vivid colors, flowers, and friendly animals give the painting a happy, fairytale feel, the ominous dark clouds in the top, left corner foreshadow the story’s ending.

The slave spiritual that this painting originates from was one of many that were often sung by slaves as they worked the cotton fields. The lyrics tell the story of Adam and Eve but the last lines to the song are particularly interesting: “So Adam took a pick and then took a plow, And that’s why we’re workin’ now!” Not only did this song help African Americans pass time during long hours of manual labor, it helped them share religious stories and make sense of the senseless oppression they were experiencing. Piper’s choice to link this spiritual to her painting draws deeper meaning into her work. Not only is she illustrating the creation story, but she is also representing all the men, women, and children who sang those words during one of the darkest times in US history.

In Rose Piper’s Eve and the Serpent, she’s managed to construct an interesting adaptation and one that was entirely new to me. While the main theme presented in her painting was immediately and easily identifiable I feel that it’s noteworthy that she’s incorporated more elements than adaptation alone. She’s utilized intertextuality in the title of her painting to include Dem Bones (Gonna Rise Again), an old African-American Spiritual song; Dem Bones tells the story of Adam and Eve. By incorporating the song and the story of Adam and Eve she’s essentially created a visual bricolage, melding the original story and an adaptation of it together, creating her own adaptation in the process. Interestingly Piper chose to paint her adaptation minus Adam. With Adam being a central figure to the story I found it a curious decision, at first.

Then I stopped to consider who Rose Piper was. She was an African American woman that was born in 1917 and grew up in the Bronx, NY and drew upon influences from blues music in the 1940s and ’50s, during which time she painted some of her most notable works; Ackland has one such piece in circulation titled Slow Down, Freight Train. So it appears that Piper frequently drew upon music as the inspiration for her paintings.  It might be assumed that as a woman and an African American woman growing up before & during segregation,  and civil rights & women’s liberation movements, she felt marginalized.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason that she chose only to depict Eve and selected elements of Dem Bones to highlight some social issues that she had to deal with. In this way, her painting, Eve and the Serpent could almost be considered a parody as well. Piper seems to have masterfully taken multiple elements & sources and blended them together to create a truly unique adaptation to the story of Adam and Eve.

I think that the way in which Piper has chosen to incorporate the tree, snake and Eve into her painting and how she has portrayed the snake, in particular, is an interesting and refreshing adaptation on a story many know so well.

‘Confused, overwhelmed, rushed, and exasperated’ would be a few of the words that accurately encapsulated my mood during my first visit to the Ackland Art Museum. The different artworks seemed to continuously cascade all around me and each room seemed to develop a new identity once I returned. It felt as if I was trying to escape the most complicated labyrinth ever designed by man, and I was so eager to escape the never ending web of clay pots, paintings, and statues. Luckily, my second visit to the Ackland Art Museum was nothing like the last and allowed me to develop a new appreciation for the building and the artwork from within.

Instead of being on a time crunch and frantically running around trying to find different pieces of art in a Spanish scavenger hunt, I was actually able to learn the history behind some of the most historical pieces on display at this museum. I greatly appreciated the change of pace between my two experiences at this building, and rather than mindlessly looking at a piece of art for a few seconds before running to the next, I was actually able to absorb some important information behind the piece that completely morphed my interpretation of each presented work as a whole. One of the pieces that remained imprinted in my mind for the longest time was a piece called “Eve and the Serpent” by Rose Piper. This painting is an adaptation of the well known story of Adam and Eve, specifically portraying the moment right before the serpent persuaded Eve to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. This painting intrigued me due to its beautiful, vibrant color display (the color of the serpent being my favorite). I also thought that it was interesting how the painting relates to a song “Sarpent he Came Roun’ de Trunk; At Miss Eve his Eye he Wunk” which I feel could possibly be an element of intertextuality. It was also interesting how the artist decided to do an African spin-off of Eve to reflect her own person identity in a sense. In the top left corner, there is a shift between the blue, serene appearing clouds with dark, ominous, and foreboding ones foreshadow the turmoil that is about to occur once Eve eats the forbidden fruit. Rose Piper did an incredible job at capturing this story and putting her own twist and flare on it to separate it from other similar works which I greatly admire.

Overall, I appreciated this slow-paced tour of the museum and the background information provided for each piece. It really helped put certain elements into perspective and portray how individuality influences how art work can be differently perceived by everyone. If I were to ever be asked to provide the name of a great “tourist attraction” on the UNC campus, the Ackland Art Museum would definitely be at the top of my list.

On Thursday, November 15, our class visited the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, NC. During our visit, we were divided into two groups, and we were led around to look at different works of art. All of the pieces of art that we looked at were very different from one another and very unique. Although they might not have had many similarities to each other, they each had their own story to tell. Inferences and conclusions could be made about each work based on what the subject matter of the work was, the way the artist chose to depict that subject matter, and the feelings that the audience of the work felt. Something that stood out to me while we were viewing the works of art is the way that connections can be drawn from art to the books that we have been reading throughout the semester. Although a lot of the art that we looked at was original, many of the pieces of art that we looked at were variations of existing themes of art that had already been created. It was interesting to see the way that the artist changed some things around from original works and created works of their own as well as thinking about what meanings the new art conveyed to the audience.

One of the most unique works that we looked at was titled “The Batture Ritual,” and it was a 25-minute video put together by Jeff Whetstone. The video captures a small section of the Mississippi River with passing boats and fishermen going down to the water’s edge. The mood of the video is peaceful, and this mood carries over to the audience who is observing it. The both natural and artificial lighting create a feeling of relaxation and simplicity, which is strengthened by the boats passing and fishermen. It brings back thoughts of simpler times, and serves as a reminder that they still exist.

A common depiction in the works that we viewed was water. It was interesting to see the way that water was depicted in such different ways. In one painting titled “Looking at the Sea,” by Howard Hodgkin, it was unclear that water was being represented in the first place. There were thick brushes of blue paint throughout the painting, and the borders were contained by a red frame that was painted on as well. This painting created a feeling of chaos and anxiety. Another painting titled “River Landscape with Fishermen” depicted peaceful water with a small town in the background. There were fishermen on the water, and everything was calm. I found it fascinating the different ways that the artists chose to depict water.

Lastly, another painting that stood out to me was “Eve and the Serpent.” This artist takes a very common theme, Eve in the Garden of Eden, and transforms it into something completely new and interesting. This painting depicts Eve, completely naked, petting the serpent who is curled around the tree. The artist used vibrant colors, and there are animals that appear to be calm and happy. Another interesting fact about this painting is that Eve is depicted with dark skin, unlike most depictions of Eve.

My main takeaway from visiting the Ackland is that art has many more connections to literature and life than I previously believed. There are many different ways of viewing art and thinking about art that might not be so obvious at first glance.