Purpose in Artwork

Purpose: The Artist’s Reason

It astounds me when I think about all of the unique pieces of art and sculptures that exist. Each piece vibrates with its creator’s passions and embraces its own meaning. Two such creations are Albert Bierstadt’s Yosemite Valley, California from 1863 and Maurits Cornelis (M.C.) Escher’s Concave/Convex from 1955. The former is classified as landscape art and the latter is classified as abstract art. Both paintings are distinct in their own way. However, the disparities between the two should not overshadow the one aspect each piece shares—a purpose.

Yosemite Valley, California is a canvas landscape painting. It depicts the physical world; specifically, it is a representation of nature. The painting emphasizes detail. It features many trees and bushes near a pond. One can clearly see the uneven bark on the branches of the trees which project outward from the base. Each branch holds a fixed number of leaves. However, as one moves upward from the base, there is a general augmentation in the number of leaves. On the bottom left corner, the painting portrays simple, bare land concealed with dirt. The pond reflects the vegetative growth which encompasses it. Realistically, the reflections in the water are not as clear as the part of the environment being reflected. Mighty mountains that seem to touch the blue sky stand tall in the background. Because they are farther off in the distance, they are not as detailed but one can certainly tell that they are there.

M.C. Escher’s painting is slightly more abstract. His work—a masterful but hypothetical innovation—does not awe the beholder with bright colors. Instead, it awes the beholder with black and white detail and lets him/her know th...

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Works Cited

“Albert Bierstadt Biography (1830-1902).” Biography. 2006. 28 Sept. 2006. http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9212211.

Butler, Adam, Claire Van Cleave, and Susan Stirling. The Art Book. London: Phaidon Press, Limited, 1994.

Chilvers, Ian. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Arts and Artists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink. New York: Little, Brown And Company, 2005.

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Langmuir, Erika and Norbert Lynton. The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists. New Haven: Yale Nota Bene Yale University Press, 2000.

“Maurits Cornelius Escher.” M.C. Escher: The Official Website. May 2000. The M.C. Escher Company B.V. 28 Sept. 2006. .