The painting I chose was The German by Andrew Wyeth. The German was painted in 1975 and consists of watercolor and black ink. The German is a watercolor painting about a German solider during World War I. The subject matter of the painting attracted me because, I like the story a historical painting tells; historical paintings in general, grab my attention more than portraits. I can appreciate the fact that Andrew Wyeth portrayed a WWI figure or event than a WWII figure or event because, a lot of paintings are about WWII. I have not come across a lot of paintings about WWI. Overall, I feel Andrew Wyeth’s choice on portraying a WWI German soldier was unique and interesting. Color Choices stand out to me more than any other feature in …show more content…
Gloomy comes to mind when I see muted colors. Muted colors in a painting give an ominous feel: Andrew Wyeth’s prominent use of muted colors implies he has a pessimistic, and gloomy view of the world because, when he painted these paintings, a lot of them were during WWII and the Cold War era. These time periods were not the best in terms of happiness. The German makes me feel on edge because, of the expression of the German soldier’s face, and the application of watercolor paint and black ink. The watercolor paint was applied heavily, thus making the painting stand out more than a painting with thin paint application. The black ink Wyeth used for the tree leaves implies the trees are dormant and it is winter time during WWI. The background is just the paper which, also implies a cold and brutal winter in this painting. The soldier looks very stern and stoic, and that his face is dirty face is from fighting in the trenches. He really looks like he was fighting in a trench because, I feel some of the brown on his uniform is dirt from trench war-fare. Overall, Andrew Wyeth’s portrayal of character’s, and paint application shows his view on
This new technological development defines the emergence of universal/total war that changed the field of combat before and during WWI. This piece was obviously painted in 1911 right before WWI, but it presents the historical change from horse-driven combat to the more industrialized methods of canon warfare. By WWI, the rise of tanks and artillery made the French Calvary obsolete, and it gave rise to the modern French infantry. Much like Levinthal’s photographic depiction of tanks and soldiers in WWII, the development of those technologies are defined in Fresnaye’s acute sense of movement in military maneuvers. The use of artillery in WWI would now make it possible to kill hundreds of thousands of soldiers with more advanced industrial development of machine technology. Certainly, Fresnaye is depicting the power and masculinity of the French infantry in terms of the coming devastation that WWI would bring to Europe. The use of artillery was a major change in the field of combat during WWI, which defined the horrors of universal war in the modern psyche. Fresnaye’s cubism illustrates the advancing modernism of early 20th century warfare in the angular and geometric depiction of men and artillery as a new phenomenon in the art world. Certainly, Fresnaye’s painting illustrates the modern psyche of total/universal war in the depiction of modern
This painting is one of the most well know because the painting show the division of the untouched wilderness to the left, and the cultivated land that is treeless and is covered by field of crops. The diagonal division creates a strong composition which is the first place where the eyes drawn to. The left side of the painting contains the most luscious greenery, which untouched nature should have consist, and the right has more of a yellowish dried and flat landscape where humans contaminated the area. The foreground has a large broken or dead tree that frames the painting so the eyes do not wonder off. The dead trees also represent the untouched land, and rainstorm approaches on left side of the sky dramatizing it. The large river that divided the land has a shape of a loop, which indicated the bow of wooded collar of the yoked ox. Just like that painting from The Clove, Cole small figure in his painting would represent the size of the landscape. The composition gives the figure a feeling of isolation in the wilderness. In The Oxbow, the small figure is John Cole himself, small and very hidden in the bushes, being present in the untamed side of
I selected this picture because as soon as I walked into the Evans wing it jumped right out at me. The painting's huge size and grandeur drew my attention. I like the use of bold colors and strong details. The painting evokes an image of power with the muscled Automedon holding two giant horses.
George Gittoes (b.1949) creates works that that communicate the issue of the graphic horror of war. A social realist painter, photographer and filmmaker, his approach to art is that ‘he layers and accumulates material until, out of apparent chaos, there is a synthesis of idea, passion and image’ (Mendelssohn, 2014). As an eyewitness to the world's war zones, Gittoes clearly uses his work as a means of communication to society.
Many soldiers who come back from the war need to express how they feel. Many do it in the way of writing. Many soldiers die in war, but the ones who come back are just as “dead.” Many cadets come back with shell shock, amputated arms and legs, and sometimes even their friends aren’t there with them. So during World War I, there was a burst of new art and writings come from the soldiers. Many express in the way of books, poems, short stories and art itself. Most soldiers are just trying to escape. A lot of these soldiers are trying to show what war is really like, and people respond. They finally might think war might not be the answer. This is why writers use imagery, irony and structure to protest war.
Seeing the art in person truly made me see the beauty and captivity a painting can hold. Each gallery was filled with different American works. My favorite kind of paintings are the ones I can look at and immediately write a story in my head about what is happening, even if it not what the artist intended. As I was going through the galleries one painting in particular stuck in my mind. I was fortunate enough to experience a special exhibition called, “Audubon to Warhol.” It was composed of different works acquired from private and public collections. I was lured to the emotions that was captured by the main figure in one of the works. I was drawn not only to the beauty of the painting, but the story it shared. The painting I chose was Peeling Onions, by Lilly Martin Spencer.
This work shows impeccably drawn beech and basswood trees. It was painted for a New York collector by the name of Abraham M. Cozzens who was then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting shows a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School. It depicts a scene showing a tranquil mood. Durand was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840.
There is a lot of repetition of the vertical lines of the forest in the background of the painting, these vertical lines draw the eye up into the clouds and the sky. These repeated vertical lines contrast harshly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, is quite static and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have quite a lot of depth. This static effect is made up for in the immaculate amount of d...
encapsulates the futility and horror of war through the use of vivid war images like
...he American Civil War. No matter what, the pictures of war that I’ve seen all have the same sad, hopeless, and tired expression of the soldiers that have fought that I think the painter was trying to show. This expression that has been like boulders on the shoulders of the soldiers won’t just go away, but I see it outside of the war as well; the wars of everyday life. It’s almost as if these warriors’ heavy hearts were so heavy that it physically weighed their bodies down to a shrug. I think that John Singer Sargent wasn’t sent to France to just capture the aftermath of World War I, but to capture the feeling that people have after their own wars. I think this heavy hearted and sorrow feeling that is expressed in this picture wasn’t just painted for this particular war, but to represent the wars people like us, the soldiers, fight in everyday life in our own war.
with of Impressionism. I also chose this painting because I find it really intriguing how a simple
middle of paper ... ... Grosz is using this art to convey a feeling, and to bring us into World War I, not by showing what it actually looked like, but rather how it felt to be there. Modern art serves to immerse us more thoroughly in a scene by touching on more than just our sight. Artists such as Grosz, and Duchamp try to get us to feel, instead of just see. It seems that this concept has come about largely as a way to regain identity after shedding the concepts of the Enlightenment.
'I also didn 't have anything against Communism and all that [...] ' (p. 44). Does Plenzdorf 's text support or attack the GDR?
The art piece I chose was a pottery that I found very interesting, not only the art itself but the story behind it. This was a red-figure archaic type of pottery; the name of the pottery is called a Terracotta hydria, which is also known as a water jar. This specific pot was made in Greece and South Italy, around 340-330BC. It was also found at Canosa before the year 1878. According to the MET museum “This pot was created by a group of BM F 308, the specific artist is unknown. However, the potter and art was produced in Greek, South Italy, and Apulia.”
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their meaning comes through our initial visual clarification. The first painting that I choose was titled The Beloved painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is in the Impressionism and you can currently visit it at the Tate Britain. The second painting that I picked was titled Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (also called The Woman in Gold). By Klimt.