Title of Exhibition: Night and Day
Artist: Harvey Dunn
Title of Artwork: After the Blizzard
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Date: N.D.
Writing Assignment
While searching the South Dakota Art Museum for potential paintings to use for this assignment, I found various paintings that appeared to interest me. However, Harvey Dunn’s “After the Blizzard” really intrigued me and grabbed my attention. This partially because of the recent snow that fell around the area. But the main reason it sparked my interest is due to my experiences I have received from taking snowmobiling trips to Centennial, Wyoming. When my friends and I take this trip, I enjoy comparing the landscape from the bottom of the mountain, to high elevations. I would say this painting definitely reminds me of some of the cabins and houses that are at high elevations on the mountain.
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The first year my friends and I took a trip to snowmobile in Wyoming, a storm occurred on the mountain, leaving about twenty-eight inches of snow to fall.
I was caught off guard by how much the landscape would change when this amount of snow fell. When there’s already a couple feet of snow-base on the ground and a storm drops close to another two and a half feet of snow on the ground, many objects become buried quickly. We decided to ride snowmobile up the mountain that day and I witnessed several of cabin’s and houses just like Dunn’s painting. Families were out shoveling doorways and paths across their yard. The overcast weather in this painting reminded me of the gloomy feeling I got when I saw these families working hard to shovel out this large amount of snow. The amount of relatability to this painting is what struck my
attention. I would attest to say that visual texture is a rather large part of this painting. Typically, snow is hard to represent in paintings because there is no contrast against snow and an overcast sky. However, in Dunn’s painting, he did a fantastic job of portraying the contrast in the snow and sky. Also, the way he painted the shadows in the show it appears there are large drifts and piles of snow. When studying the painting you can tell there is a substantial amount of snow because the only part of the house that is exposed is the roof itself. The man in the painting also appears to be shoveling snow, and with the pile behind him it appears he has been doing that for a while. Another little hint Dunn added to the visual texture is the darker sky around the chimney, probably to send the message that it is very cold outside, so they must keep their fireplace running. The amount of clothing they are dressed in also supports that texture. A principle and design that stands out to me in this painting is Emphasis and Subordination. Dunn is trying to emphasize the amount of snow that has fallen around this family’s house. I would suggest that there is a focal point in this painting, and that being the man shoveling while the woman watches him. That is the first place my eyes were drawn when I first looked at the painting. Dunn used contrast to emphasize what he wanted the viewer to look at first. With all the snow being white, he used dark colors such as brown and a dark red to show the contrast and focus the viewers attention on the house and people outside. When the light from the museums fixtures are shined on this painting, it really brightens up the white showing the contrast with the dark colors, revealing the focal point of the painting. This painting is displayed very well and caught my eye almost immediately as I was walking around the museum. I could easily relate to this painting and it brought back various memories from snow storms in Wyoming.
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