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Analysis of the painting
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Maria Van Oosterwyck’s oil painting has many layers that display the creativity and imagination of the painting. The oil painting has many objects of interest that makes the work of art so interesting to analyze. The painting draws you in because of the colors and shapes of large and small proportions. The Saturation and dramatic color concepts along with overlapping represent the unique style of art displayed. When Analyzing the work of art the distinct areas of focus in understanding the oil painting is: lighting, color, spacing, and scale. The lighting of a painting or work of art ultimately can control were to look or focus on. Especially, in a painting with numerous objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes its vital that the …show more content…
Maria Van Oosterwyck’s oil painting has a variety of colors which captures viewers attention because of the way they mesh with one another. Although the painting has many colors, the dominant colors are black, white, and red. The entire painting is bordered by a thick black pigment which allows for other complementary colors to stand out. The white and red flowers because of the drastic saturation to the other objects which makes them an area of focus. Additionally, within the group of flowers there is one singular blue flower which blends in with the darker green and black secondary colors of the plant. Along with this there is a pattern of light brown/tan colors throughout the painting which work with one another in unity. The stronger red and white colors despite standing out more, complement the other colors because of the saturation and contrast too the dark background. The colors are derived from some type of light that is shining on the table in which all the objects are on. This light allows the colors to be vibrant and shows the little details delivered in the painting. Another small area of color choice is seen with the fly,butterflies, and rat in the paining. The rat which is predominately black hides in between the glass bowl and instrument. Without having a tint of white and gray on his body the rat would go unrecognizable because of its similar color to the …show more content…
The largest element in the painting is the plant of flowers which stands tall because of the hanging vines and buds. Adjacent to the plant is the globe which is also of a larger proportion of the painting because of its circular shape that is held upright by a wooden boarder. As the object move down the painting they can progressively smaller. Underneath the globe and flowers are the skull and the book, which are then followed by objects like the fly and rat. This shows the order and sequence within the painting that allows the viewer to follow. The objects within the painting take up the majority of the space with the corners and bottom of the painting being black and faded coloring. Behind the objects is a faded arc which is hard to recognize but helps in identifying the scale and size of where the oil paining. The viewers point of view is up close due to the size of the different elements, in addition to the items being leveled because of the table. The eye level and scale to which this was drawn from was most likely from someone who was siting down because the objects on display would normally below eye level when standing that close. Maria Van Oosterwyck’s painting of the “Vanitas Still Life” is layered with different shapes, colors, and sizes which makes it difficult and intriguing to analyze. Through the different lighting, color, spacing,
The face of the portrait is detailed, and more naturally painted than the rest of the composition. However, the left iris exceeds her eye and extends past the normal outline. The viewer can see every single brush stroke resulting in a unique approach to the capturing human emotion. The streaky texture combines with the smoothness flow of the artist’s hand creating contrast between the hair and the face. The woman’s hair is painted with thick and chunky globs of paint. The viewer can physically see the paint rising from the canvas and flowing into the movement of the waves of hair. Throughout the hair as well as the rest of the portrait Neel abandons basic painting studies and doesn’t clean her brush before applying the next color. Because of the deliberate choice to entangle the colors on the brush it creates a new muddy palate skewed throughout the canvas. Moving from the thick waves of hair, Neel abandons the thick painting style of the physical portrait and moves to a looser more abstract technique to paint the background. Despite the lack of linear perspective, Neel uses a dry brush technique for the colorful streaks in the background creating a messy illusion of a wall and a sense of space. The painting is not clean, precise, or complete; there are intentional empty spaces, allowing the canvas to pear through wide places in the portrait. Again, Neel abandons
Vanitas paintings are two dimensional compositions of symbolic content and iconography. The various objects used in the design of these paintings symbolize the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and beauty, and the inescapable reality of death. This form of art was developed out of Northern Europe in the mid-16th century and through the 17th century. The word “vanitas” is Latin for “vanity.” Vanitas paintings are designed to remind its viewers of the verse in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes that says all earthly things are “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Artists who painted vanitas wanted their viewers to remember that the wealth, beauty, and achievements that people desire and obtain will pass away and that death is a sure thing. Mortality is the message present in each vanitas painting and each artist expresses this meaning individually with the use of iconography, color, and various techniques.
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...
Two of the most extensively analyzed works of art are Diego Velasquez's Las Meninas and Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Double Portrait. Both of these artist's talent won them recognition not only during their lifetime but after as well. Both Velasquez and Van Eyck have a justly earned title as the most talented artists of their respective times. A detailed examination of the details and intricacies of these artist's respective masterpieces, their similarities, and what sets them apart not just from each other but from other paintings from their time period and style, will lead the viewer to a better understanding of the mentalities of these gifted artists and how they transcend their respective genres and contemporaries to create their own artistic identities.
The painting has an order and there are different shapes and angles. Rectangular shape is main trend around this piece, including the wooden chest, the leg rest and the canvass. Also things overlap, creating the illusion of the shape look closer to viewer than the shape behind it. The example in this piece would be the chair on which Adelaide Labille Guiard sits be close to viewer than the girls behind it. This adds depth to the space. Also due to linear perspective girls behind the chair are smaller due to being farther away.
The most dominant visual elements include line, shape, and color. The artist uses lines in this picture with the brush strokes on the ruffle of the skirt and in places where two colors have met including where the ruffle meets the skirt, where the gold vest meets the dress, and where the edge of the floor meets the edge of the wall. Lines can also be seen with the necklace that is worn. Curved lines are used to indicate wrinkles in the dress while the lady is sitting in the chair and to show the ribs of the dog. Shape is seen in the facial features of the lady as the nose is a triangle and the mouth and head are both ovals. The ears of the dog are triangular in shape while the dog’s face eyes, and the area around the mouth are all circles. The body and the legs of the dog are all cylinders. The top part of the back of the chair is a quadrilateral while the spindle is a cylinder. With the way that the lady is holding her hands in the picture, a hexagonal shape is created with her lower arms, upper arms, and shoulders. Color can easily be seen as a visual element heavily used throughout this piece. Many different colors were used in this piece such as blue, red, tan, light pink, brown, white, black and gold. White, brown and tan with shades of light pink were used as the background colors on the wall while brown and tan were used on the floor. The main color of the dress is black
Color is used to draw attention to important characters and objects in the painting. The red of Mary’s shirt emphasizes her place as the main figure. A bright, yellow cloud floating above the room symbolizes the joy of the angelic figures. De Zurbaran uses warm colors in the foreground. The room, used as the background for the scene, is painted in dark colors utilizing different hues of gray and brown.
... study for the overall concept they appear rather as abstract patterns. The shadows of the figures were very carefully modeled. The light- dark contrasts of the shadows make them seem actually real. The spatial quality is only established through the relations between the sizes of the objects. The painting is not based on a geometrical, box like space. The perspective centre is on the right, despite the fact that the composition is laid in rows parallel to the picture frame. At the same time a paradoxical foreshortening from right to left is evident. The girl fishing with the orange dress and her mother are on the same level, that is, actually at equal distance. In its spatial contruction, the painting is also a successful construction, the groups of people sitting in the shade, and who should really be seen from above, are all shown directly from the side. The ideal eye level would actually be on different horizontal lines; first at head height of the standing figures, then of those seated. Seurats methods of combing observations which he collected over two years, corresponds, in its self invented techniques, to a modern lifelike painting rather than an academic history painting.
The size of the painting is 34 3/8 x 45 3/4 in. (86.5 x 115 cm). The height in proportion to the width shows that the painting is not proportional but it is not far off from forming a perfect square. The frame does not cut-off any of the people in the painting. The composition is centered and zoomed in to show what is going on. The composition is not simple but it is not complex either. The composition is not geometrically ordered. The people seem to be free and in motion. There is asymmetry throughout the painting. In the organization of the painting the objects appear to be crowded. There is not a lot of space between the people who appear to be fighting. The shapes of the people show that the mermaids are fighting a big guy and the placement of them shows unbalance. There are a couple objects presents. A total of three mermaids are presents including a triton and some objects are in the background represented by shadows. The sizes of the objects in the center of the composition are big compared to the ones in the background. A lot of emphasis is present in the center of the painting. The forms of the mermaids and triton are volumetric and a nice scenery is present in the background. The mermaids and trition are formed by contoured lines. Some of the lines are sharp and defined to show the natural curves on the human body and there is blurred out lines in the water to show waves and movements. The lines help give the painting a realistic feel to it. The lines are active in the reflection of the water. The color pallet present in the painting is soft with neutral warm colors. Only a couple different colors were used and the red color on the mermaid stands out the most. The neutral skin color is dominant because it is the color mo...
The artist used the colors and materials to make the painting look flawless. The gold used in the painting shines upon lights reflection. The dark green border compliments the dark green cloth used only in decorating the king’s horse.
...retation of the painting some aspects were surprising to how dark and heavy hearted she could speak, she took an interesting perspective. However in her interpretative poem she found a perspective of the painting that connected with her. As she used every stroke of darkness painted into the canvas an opportunity to have it symbolize this darkness and evil that resides in the world. It told her story and her experience of a starry night. Similarly Van Gogh had used every stroke of light painted into the canvas to be a symbol of beauty, and a symbol of his fascination of the night sky and its illuminating lights. He uses swift movements of his brush to depict a sky that seem to be able to sweep the mind away from the frustrations of this world in to the dreamy night light. A single painting worth a million words tells many stories through every perspective.
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their significance comes through our initial visual interpretation. When we first view a painting or a statue or other piece of art, we notice first the visual details – its size, its medium, its color, and its condition, for example – before we begin to ponder its greater significance. Indeed, these visual clues are just as important as any other interpretation or meaning of a work, for they allow us to understand just what that deeper meaning is. The expression on a statue’s face tells us the emotion and message that the artist is trying to convey. Its color, too, can provide clues: darker or lighter colors can play a role in how we judge a piece of art. The type of lines used in a piece can send different messages. A sculpture, for example, may have been carved with hard, rough lines or it may have been carved with smoother, more flowing lines that portray a kind of gentleness.
When first approaching this work, one feels immediately attracted to its sense of wonder and awe. The bright colors used in the sun draws a viewer in, but the astonishment, fascination, and emotion depicted in the expression on the young woman keeps them intrigued in the painting. It reaches out to those who have worked hard in their life and who look forward to a better future. Even a small event such as a song of a lark gives them hope that there will be a better tomorrow, a thought that can be seen though the countenance by this girl. Although just a collection of oils on a canvas, she is someone who reaches out to people and inspires them to appreciate the small things that, even if only for a short moment, can make the road ahead seem brighter.
Picasso’s significant painting presents five life size female figures twisting in an ambiguous, tight space, and confronting its viewers in an uncomfortable way. With this new found inspiration upon viewing Picasso’s painting, Matisse is able to go deeper and more expressive into his description of the female nudes without being shallow in Bathers by a River. An intense, competitive partnership developed between Cubism and Fauvism. No matter how much he might have wanted to, Matisse could not ignore Picasso and the advances he was making in the art world. Their heated conflict deeply fueled Modern Art as each artist tried to surpass the other. As with many of Matisse’s Cubist contemporaries, the underlying drawing was of greater significance to his paintings than any brilliant color effects, even though the use of light continued to play a significant part in these 1913-17 works. Matisse found major new ways of applying paint to canvas. He layered, smeared and removed what he had painted earlier on the canvas not by scraping it away with a tool, but by applying fresh paint to cover and remake what was previously there. The raw textures in Bathers by a River energize the serious
This painting by Vincent Van Gogh is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, in the Impressionism exhibit. There are many things going on in this painting that catch the viewer’s eye. The first is the piece’s vibrant colors, light blues and browns, bright greens, and more. The brush strokes that are very visible and can easily be identified as very thick some might even say bold. The furniture, the objects, and the setting are easy to identify and are proportioned to each other. There is so much to see in this piece to attempt to explain in only a few simple sentences.