In an empty room at the Timken Museum of Art hangs one of the most iconic paintings of Johannes Vermeer, the astonishing painting, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. In the painting a pale woman’s stands patiently while reading a letter. The woman appears to be wearing a blue jacket and a long gray skirt, and only gazing at the letter, ignoring all of her surroundings. The top right of the painting seems to be a map of the Netherlands, which attracts the viewer because it explains the setting of where the painting took place. The blue jacket around the woman’s torso appears to exaggerate the woman’s stomach, giving the impression that she might be pregnant. The blue chairs resemble a sign of absence as if she lives alone. The light on the top left shines on her face which enhances the viewer’s view of the woman’s facial expression. Johannes Vermeer’s interpretation of complex colors, the light, and her body language inflicts a persuasion on the viewer that the women is traumatized by the news in the letter. …show more content…
Not only does he make the woman’s jacket blue, but also the two chairs. The jacket is similar to a turquoise color this sometimes symbolizes sophistication. He uses that color to explain the emotion in the women, and the mood. Also, the dark blue chairs symbolize peace and calm. This could mean that the letter was from someone checking up on her. Behind the woman is a giant brown scroll that looks like the map of the Netherlands. Some people say that the letter was written by a traveling husband. There is almost a mystery to why Vermeer uses the color blue so much in his paintings. Mostly it’s because he wants to show a sense of peace and
Blue is used to represent the water as well as the sky and both similar and range in different tones. All of the colors in this piece are washed out but still have a bright quality to them. The colors aren’t brightly pigmented however; Hiroshige does a satisfying job of drawing in the viewer with the color choices used and the little details. The sun in the sky is simply the white of the paper and almost looks as if the color burns through. Pops of red, show in blocks on the right side of the work wit Japanese writing inside each one, which contrasts with the large amounts of blue and helps the writing stand out.
...elationship between the people in the composition and their feelings in each other’s company. The viewer is forced to think critically about the people in the painting and their feelings and body language.
The composition of this painting forces the eye to the woman, and specifically to her face. Although the white wedding dress is large and takes up most of the woman’s figure, the white contrasts with her face and dark hair, forcing the viewer to look more closely into the woman’s face. She smokes a cigarette and rests her chin on her hands. She does not appear to be a very young woman and her eyes are cast down and seem sad. In general, her face appears to show a sense of disillusionment with life and specifically with her own life. Although this is apparently her wedding day, she does not seem to be happy.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous painting, At the Moulin-Rouge, combines striking coloring with abnormal lighting to create a work that addresses men’s superficial interest in women. The dark scene depicted in the painting includes ten people scattered about a restaurant. In the center, two women and three men sit casually around a table while the background portrays two men and a woman peering into mirrors; a second woman (in the foreground) observes the situation. The most arresting aspect of the picture is the dominating, pale face of a woman in the right foreground of the picture. A careful analysis of the painting begins with the study of the portrayal of the brightly-lit women and how the men’s gazes focus that representation and concludes with the viewer’s natural confirmation of that portrayal. This textual look at the picture leads the viewer to the conclusion that it is a woman’s external pomp that attracts a male.
Johannes Vermeer was born on October, 31st 1632, in Delft, Netherlands, and died December, 16 1675. Jan was one of the best artists during that period of time. He, had many successes, but one painting that capture everyone’s attention was, Girl with a Pearl Earring, an 18 ¼ x 15 ¼ in. Size portrait, painted in 1655, and represented to be an oil on canvas painting. This portrait can be viewed in Mauritshuis, The Hague. The genre of this painting is a historical fiction, as in the subject it was about daily life situations, and an ordinary girl. Johannes Vermeer made this painting be a representational, because it showed is emotions, patients, and dedication. Also, it represents a woman and how this painting became to be. Girl with a Pearl Earring,
In the novella of "Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland, it has many short stories that talk about a painting by J. Vermeer of Delft, and in each story, it talks about the painting and the impact that it has on different people's lives for better or for worse. In explaining this painting in the first short story of "Love Enough," the author explains it as "A most extraordinary painting in which a young girl wearing a short blue smock over a rust-colored skirt sat in profile at a table by an open window." (page 4) In the last story "Magdalena Looking," Magdalena herself explained how her father drew her for this painting and how she thought that she was ugly and that no one would want to look at her or even want the painting of her. All
So, this painting creates a visual depiction of what people think and feel. The next two pieces create a different kind of impression, they are not showing us how it look directly, it is not something we can see with our eyes.
Alice Neel’s painting Suzanne Moss was created in 1962 using oil paint on canvas. As the title suggests, the painting depicts a woman’s portrait. Now resigning in the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI, this portrait of a woman lunging is notable for the emotional intensity it provokes as well as her expressionistic use of brush strokes and color. The scene is set by a woman, presumably Suzanne Moss, dressed in dull back and blues lounging across a seat, staring off to the side, avoiding eye contact with the viewer. The unique style and technique of portraiture captures the woman’s piercing gaze and alludes to the interior emotions of the subject. In Suzanne Moss, Alice Neel uses desultory brush strokes combined with contrast of warm and cool shadows
The artwork of Erwin I’m looking at is called My Mother, My Sister, Back to Back. In this drawing the artist mother and sister pose for her sitting on a table in front of a window. The first the first object that catches your eyes when you look at the painting are the figures, mainly the artist mother. The halo of cottony white hair leads you down to a tired, aged woman face. This gravity you feel pulls you down to follow the curve of her body, which looks like it’s getting tired of holding itself up, to her slightly stretched out legs. One foot touches the line of the window panel which leads you up to the top of the drawing then follow the foliage across the drawing. Then you follow the window panel back down to the artist sister cover legs. From the legs you find her twiddling her hands in a nervous gesture. Follow her arms up in stiff posture next you see the sister turn her neck slightly has if to check on her mother and ask if she needs a break. Their backs only touch in two places the behind and the shoulders. The colors are very muted in the background and the only true
I have chosen to write my paper on painting titled “Café at Night” by Vincent Van Gogh. Since this picture is a very popular one, I might have seen it a couple times before I actually decided to write about it. I feel warmth, streaming out of it, when I take a look at the “Café at Night”. This comfortable feeling made me select this artwork.
The painting is organized simply. The background of the painting is painted in an Impressionist style. The blurring of edges, however, starkly contrasts with the sharp and hard contours of the figure in the foreground. The female figure is very sharp and clear compared to the background. The background paint is thick compared to the thin lines used to paint the figures in the foreground. The thick paint adds to the reduction of detail for the background. The colors used to paint the foreground figures are vibrant, as opposed to the whitened colors of the Impressionist background. The painting is mostly comprised of cool colors but there is a range of dark and light colors. The light colors are predominantly in the background and the darker colors are in the foreground. The vivid color of the robe contrasts with the muted colors of the background, resulting in an emphasis of the robe color. This emphasis leads the viewer's gaze to the focal part of the painting: the figures in the foreground. The female and baby in the foreground take up most of the canvas. The background was not painted as the artist saw it, but rather the impression t...
In the Golden Age of seventeenth-century Dutch Art, many painting masters came to light. Paintings of familiar scenes of domestic, everyday life became immensely popular among patrons; genre painting quickly became a branch of art in its own right. Many of these paintings, with or without purpose, contained hidden symbolic messages, some warning of the effects of a sinful life, with others providing a moral code in which one should inherit. Jan Steen’s The Feast of St. Nicholas is no exception. In this domestic scene, we see a Dutch family that has been visited by St. Nicholas and the joys and disappointments he has left for certain members. Steen’s The Feast of St. Nicholas is a strong narrative painting that is skewed with moralizing and symbolic messages throughout the composition.
In her article, “Judith Leyster’s Proposition – Between Virtue and Vice,” Frima Fox Hofrichter offers the readers to acknowledge a painter of still-life, portraiture, and genre works named Judith Leyster, who had been greatly commended in her native city of Haarlem by introducing a new view in painting that contradicts a popular theme. The key question that the author, Frima Hofrichter, is addressing is Judith Leyster’s outlook towards her painting of The Proposition, instead of the actual subject in the art piece.
The contrasts between depth and surface, figure and landscape, promiscuity and modesty, beauty and vulgarity all present themselves in de Kooning’s Woman and Bicycle. Although the figure is a seemingly normal woman out for an afternoon with her bike, she becomes so much more through the artist’s use of color, contrast, and composition. The exotic nature of woman presents itself in her direct stare and slick buxom breasts in spite of a nearly indiscernible figure. It is understood that, on the whole, de Kooning did not paint with a purpose in mind, but rather as an opportunity to create an experience, however, that does not go to say that there isn’t some meaning that can come of this work. Even Willem de Kooning once said that art is not everything that is in it, but what you can take out of it (Hess p.144).
As onlookers peer into the artworks in front of them, there is no question as to whether or not they considered what the artwork means, where it came from and what the artist was interested in who created it. The intrigued viewer quite possibly could also want to have a conversation with that artist and ask them questions about the artwork and what it was that they were thinking about when producing it, with a goal of better understanding what they were looking at. As the viewer and after serious contemplation, would you believe you understood the artwork as the artist or artist’s society believed the work? Could you appreciate the work the same? Walter Benjamin, a well known German-Jewish Marxist literary and cultural critic, philosopher, translator and essayist introduced ideas and questions similar to these in his epic essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” He wrote about many different ideas concerning the concept of art, writing, politics and society. Benjamin was born in Berlin on July 15, 1892. He worked and lived in Germany for the majority of his life. He earned a Ph. D in 1919, but never held an academic career (egs.edu, 2009). “He dedicated his life’s work to writ...