Art Analysis Paper
Art plays a significant role in our lives. It is the center of the American culture and many others around the world. It has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Throughout this semester, we have talked many different kinds of art forms and styles and for this analysis paper, I will discuss the Panorama of the City of New York and how it serves as an art piece. I choose to discuss this because it is one of the artwork that stands out as a giant figure among all the exhibits that can be found in the Queens Museum.

The Panorama of the City of New York is an unbroken view of what our city looks like within its boundary. It is the jewel in crown of collection of the Queens Museum. It was first built in 1964 by Raymond Lester and Associates team of architects as a special exhibition to feature in the 1964 World’s Fair by New York’s master planner, Robert Moses who conceived the idea of this art piece to be modelled and to serve as a tool for education and tourist attraction from across the nation and around the globe. It attracted many viewers because it is a display of what the city looks in its entirety. The project took over a course of three years and by a hand full of architects. It was one of the most successful exhibits at the 1964 World’s Fair with millions of people enjoying the model. However, over the years many changes have been made to update the piece to suit the changes of the expansion of the city. Therefore, prior to 1992, buildings such as newly built apartments, houses, parks, streets bridges etc. have been included which currently covers an area of 9,335 square feet of the exhibit space. Raymond A. Lester and Associates Inc. were awarded a contract to build the Panorama of the City of New York in 1964 and many other public facilities such as railroads and airplane models. He died at age 74 from a heart attack at Southampton Hospital. He lived in East Hampton, L.I. but was born in Canada and grew up in New York.
During my visit to the Queens Museum, I came in contact with the art piece entitled the Panorama of the city of New York which left a broad picture on my mind the whole night. When I first saw it, it bit my mind and I said to myself “this is so nice to be called just an art or treated like a common piece of art”, my reaction towards it was unexplainable. According to Immanuel Kant, beauty is something purposive but without a purpose but to me beauty is more of like a term given to objects that we see and are appealing to our eyes regardless of what it symbolizes. Although the Panorama stands a test of time in history, it’s still one of the most beautiful historic models ever that the city of New York can boast of till date. The way it’s built shows a clear and accurate scope of the entire landscape and all the 830,000 tiny buildings built from wood and plastic materials. With the exception of a section of Far Rockaway which couldn’t fit on the available space and taken out of the piece, I can boldly say am astound by the level of creativity displayed by Lester and his associates.
Secondly, taste is a refined ability to perceive in an artwork according to Hume however, to me taste doesn’t necessarily have to be a common principle that everyone must follow rather its individual preferences. I can tell this from the look I saw on a group of class mate’s faces when we visited the visited the Queens Museum and first introduced to the Panorama of the City. I could perceive by the look on their faces that they didn’t really think the piece was unique as I thought which means that there are different ways to look at an artwork and different conclusions which can be drawn from looking at it. Sometimes people may look at art as something they can relate to in life, others too might see it as something common and am sure anybody will see the Panorama as attractive but I see it as “ the bold shape which surrounds me” because I can see wherever I am on the Panorama of the city. When I think of this piece, it reminds me of the phrase “there’s no hiding place for a thief under the sun”, meaning that, indirectly, the Panorama of the city can also be used to trace and monitor every activity in the city because when you look at it, you can clearly see “all the tall buildings, too tall to hide, all the huge and wide buildings, too huge and wide to hide.”
Finally, after I thought this was one of the greatest piece I have ever seen, I was left with some questions on my mind like, “does New Yorkers care about this piece and do they feel proud to be living in a place like this based on what is displayed on the Panorama of the city”?
The most important thing about art is that, it can be made by anyone but first you have to love it before you can do it. I felt connected to the Panorama of the city and suddenly developed the interest of talking about it.