"How the West Was Won" by Chester Arnold

On my trip to the” Nevada Museum of Art” to view the Chester Arnold exhibit I truly started to view art in a different way than I ever had before. I really enjoyed looking at the art work and trying to find an understanding on what the artist was trying say to the world through his art work. The true amazement I had while looking at this artist work was how every person looking at the work had a different perception on what the artist was trying to portray to the viewers.
Chester Arnold focus much through his paintings on politics, social responsibility, environmental issues to global impacts of human and industrial consumption, accumulation and waste. When you view this artist works you truly start to feel a understanding of what we need to do to better the world and clear the litter and stop the destruction of the United States of America and the world. Arnold was born in Santa Monica, California but moved to Munich, Germany to receive private education. Then moved back to California to go to college at Marin College and then transferred to San Francisco art institute in 1980.
While viewing the exhibit there was one art piece of Chester Arnolds that really stuck out in my mind. How the west was won in my opinion truly touches gently on all the topics this artist tries to depict through his art work it shows much litter in a canyon with skulls randomly laying throughout the “trash” it also shows a rail road with a train traveling on it. The title shows that the settlers of the west destroyed the west which is viewed as the more “beautiful” coast of America when they began the journey of the gold rush. The gold rush although was the start of the population that is now living in the west, it destroyed many native American cities and hunting land by destroying many mountains sides and many rivers running through the canyons. The “litter” shows that the heavy population of the west in modern day society leaves heavy trash on which in the past was a beautiful part of this country. He is trying to show that modern day Americans that live on the west coast do not live up to the responsibility of keeping the most beautiful parts of the world clean and litter free and to keep it breath taking like before the rush began. The train traveling on train tracks shows that the railroad that crossed all the way across America played a major role of ruining the beauty of the west. When the work began on the rail way there was much destruction to the land to make a path for the tracks to follow. The “skulls” that lay throughout the painting shows the death of many Native Americans that the white men killed to settle in the ideal spot for a city to grow and strive. Murder has never been “acceptable” in America but many forget about the lives are ancestors took to make the major cities that are around today like San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, etc. The skulls show that the death will never be forgotten by those who care about the destruction the white man did to the country to make it powerful and successful as it is today.