Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (12:00 p.m.) Happiness Group Completed Project | Page 13

Changing of the Seasons
(Fall to Winter)
By: Mason Turner
I
n a portion of the artwork por-
traying the fall season, there are
a number of children playing in a
small forest near a neighborhood.
They are walking on a path over-
grown by trees. The leaves of trees
are turning yellow, orange, and red.
They are falling, creating piles for the
children to play hide and seek in, or
simply jump into and play in. Along
the side of the path, a few tiny piles
of snow are forming, symbolizing the
transition from fall to winter. The
children are young and naive; they
only see the fun side of fall, the one
where they frolic among the leaves
and play with each other, with seem-
ingly no consequences, and no re-
gard for their own safety. To con-
trast, their parents and older siblings
are doing yard work. They are raking
leaves and clipping plants so that
they do not have to lose their leaves
naturally, and can save their energy
for surviving the winter. But else-
where in the picture, there is some-
thing not quite as happy: a child with
a fever, or a cold. He is feeling ill
from his sickness, and since he is not
wearing any gloves at all, the sick-
ness only magnifies in intensity. The
contrast of the children to their par-
ents and older people, as well as the
sick child, symbolizes the negative
side of happiness, which is blissful
ignorance. When you are very hap-
py, you become blind to the negative
parts of life, and do not know how to
deal with them when they turn up.
To the right of the fall section is a
scene of winter. The transition from
fall to winter symbolizes when times
become darker, scarier, more nega-
tive and more depressing. In the
winter portion, you see another ste-
reotypical scene of children playing.
Children making snowmen, skiing,
sledding, and snowboarding, a very
cheerful scene. However, like with
the fall, there is a contrast to the
cheery children. Again, you see
adults and teenagers doing work:
shoveling snow, breaking ice, getting
tired. There are a number of sick
people with the cold or the flu, even
more than during the fall, again
symbolizing the negative side of hap-
piness, as well as symbolizing the
transition from fall to winter as going
from “bad to worse.” But despite all
of this, there is still a feeling of hap-
piness in the picture. Even though
there is negativity in the scene, and
even though the children ignore it,
the simple fact is that the negativity
is temporary, just as the seasons.
Maybe the children are not as naive
as they seem, and believe that it
may not be worth it to be sad over
some negativity while they are hav-
ing a happy experience that over-
rides it.
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