PART I – SAINT ANTHONY ABBOTT TEMPTED BY A HEAP OF GOLD
The piece Saint Anthony Abbott Tempted by a Heap of Gold was painted in 1435 by a Sienese artist known as the Master of the Osservanza (Getlein, 2013, p. 162). The piece is of one of eight panels that was inspired by the life of Saint Anthony Abbot and depicts the subject, Saint Anthony, on a journey down a rocky pathway. His journey starts from a church and weaves its way through what may be viewed as a desert landscape. We are allowed a brief moment to observe Saint Anthony looking in disdain at an object that appears to be something he is either fearful of or wants to distance himself from. When we look down we notice that the object he appears to be looking at is a small rabbit cowering in fear; however we also notice that there appears to be an area on the painting that may have been altered eliminating a key element, which was thought to be a pot of gold (Getlein, 2013, p. 162).
This piece was created using tempera and employs a layering technique and small brush strokes (Getlein, 2013, p. 162). It is oriented vertically and exemplifies several design techniques including: asymmetrical balance, rhythm, emphasis/subordination, and proportion. The asymmetrical balance can be
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observed in this piece by noticing how the bigger structures and figures (the church and Saint Anthony) are located to right side of the painting and seem to emanate light, warmth and brightness. In stark contrast we see the small scraggly trees to the left of the painting are dark and almost lifeless. They provide a rather ominous feel to the surrounding almost desolate landscape. The rhythm in this piece can be observed in the repeated patterns in the sand as well as the clouds. Resembling waves, the sand appears to be constantly shifting and moving with nothing other than the trees, the church and a few scattered animals to stop its constant movement. The large hills it forms appear to be cooler in color, reflect less light and create a barrier between Saint Anthony and the church allowing us to believe that something bad is about to happen. The clouds appear as dark ripples trying to drown out the light from the rising (or setting) sun. Subordination reveals itself as a design element in this piece by using muted greens and darker colors in the top of the painting. This obscures our view so that our eyes are less focused on the lake, boat and mountains in the background and more emphasis is placed on Saint Anthony, his journey and the desolation of the landscape. The positioning of the animals, their stature and their color also lends to the concept of subordination. Although they are there, they blend in very well with the landscape and do not appear not have much zest for life left in them. This enhances the feeling that the landscape is a harsh unwelcoming environment. Proportion is used in interesting ways in this piece. If we look at the animals they appear to be very disproportionate to their surroundings, sometimes appearing to be bigger than they should be and other times smaller. The rocks on the pathway also appear to be very large and out of place when we see the smoothness of the sand mounds next to them. Saint Anthony Abbott Tempted by a Heap of Gold embodies many interesting visual elements. Of these elements one of the more interesting concepts pertain to direction and movement. We movement in the sand as it blows away from the path, exposing and leaving behind only those things that are too heavy or stong to be swept away in its depths. It seems to show movement in the direction of the dead trees and gives the appearance, as evidenced by the animals lying down and looking sickly, that nothing will escape its lure forever. Eventually all will succumb and become part of the desolate and lifeless landscape. We see where Saint Anthony braces his walking staff against the path, wrapping his arm around it as if to hold himself steadfast on his path. The end of his stick points forward on the path. The use of light is another element that is used within this piece to radiate a sense of goodness and holiness. We can see how light seems to radiate off of the church and Saint Anthony, but seems to be absorbed into the remaining background, making it appear to be dark and foreboding. We also see darkness in the clouds that are scattered across the sky which represses the light from reaching much of the surrounding landscape. A third visual element used in this piece is implied space. This can be seen as we view Saint Anthony and he appears to be in front of the large sand dune. The sand dune in turn is in front of the church, which in turn is in front of the mountains. By layer each of these objects we are able to perceive depth even though the painting has a two dimensional quality. The final two visual elements that are observed in this piece are color and atmospheric perspective. The color scheme used in this piece are primarily earth tones. Although some hues are warm by nature (primarily the colors of the sky, the church, and Saint Anthony) and the cooler hues represent the background images and landscape. By varying the cool and warm tones in the piece it helps the person viewing the piece to understand that although the church and Saint Anthony represent what is good, what is around them appears to be tempting and evil in nature. The element of atmospheric perspective is used in the upper portions of the piece where we can see the faint outlines of more mountains and sand dunes in the distance. PART II – PORTRAIT OF A MAN (SELF-PORTRAIT?) The piece Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait?) painted in 1433 by an artist from the Netherlands known as Jan van Eyck (Getlein, 2013, p. 163). Many believe that this painting is a self-portrait of the artist due to the inscription on the bottom of the frame which states “Van Eyck make me” (Getlein, 2013, p. 163). This piece was created using oil paint on an oak panel. It is oriented vertically and exemplifies several design techniques including: asymmetrical balance, unity and proportion. The asymmetrical balance can be observed in this piece by noting that the portrait is just off center with the head turned slightly to the left and a majority of it comprising of the left side of the painting. The other half of the portrait primarily comprises of the headpiece which rests on top of the subject’s head. The painting exemplifies unity in that it is very simplistic with all elements working together to make one consistent image which inspires little to no creative interpretation of it. The proportion of the size of the subjects head and the head piece is rather interesting. The head piece appears to be quite large in relation to the subject’s head allowing one to wonder whether the artist believed himself to be more intelligent and having a bigger brain that required more to cover and protect it. Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait?) embodies many interesting visual elements including: light, space, color, and organic shapes.
Light is used to make the face of the subject appear as if it is coming out from the shadows. Space is used in the same manner but using darkness. The dark space allows us to focus only on the face. Nothing else will distract us from the face that emerges from the dark space. Color is used rather sparingly. The only interesting use of color is the red used in the head piece. Again this appears to draw attention to the fact that a big wrap is needed to protect and cover a big brain which houses immense intelligence. The face in the portrait is considered an organic shape as it appears natural in
form. PART III COMPARING AND CONSTRASTING THE PAINTINGS In viewing each of these painting I found very little that they had in common with one another. The second painting was harder to analyze as it had little variety and was very plain. The first painting had many things to look at and led you to think of the mysterious possible stories that it was trying to portray. It was hard to believe that both of these paintings came from the same time period, but were so drastically different. Resources Getlein, Mark. Living With Art. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 162-163. Print.
Large and medium sizes of the forms dominate over small in the painting. The arrangement of the objects in this art piece is mostly centric. However, even though it is central, it is not symmetrical. The painter also touched the left edge of the burlap and the right bottom corner of it; this helps viewer’s eye to enter the painting smoothly, move around and escape from it. The asymmetry of the arrangement creates the sense of imbalance. Lam uses basic lines and shapes in the composition. Nevertheless, the painter creates wonderful light movement inside the figure with wavy shapes, which directs viewer’s eye from the top to the
If one came close to the figure’s stomach where there’s the seafoam green, one can see the strong mark makings of the paint brushes and knife strokes, making the paint come out of the canvas. Similarly, Brown also uses big paint strokes of different colors to direct viewer’s eyes around the artwork. For instance, on the left side of the figure, there is a big vertical downward motion of a brush stroke in maroon, that connects to a green streak that goes up and encompasses the figure’s head and then downward to the body of the figure, which outlines and pushes the figure to stand out. And to make our eyes go back to the figure, Brown paints a blue triangle on the chest, making it a focal point due to it’s dark color that stands out of the light colors. And if someone stood facing the side of the painting, one can see the thick globs of paint that would make the viewer take a double glance to see if it was either a painting or a sculpture, which reinforces the idea that the painting is coming alive and making one feel
He is known how to combine three main colors and balance it to his artwork, green tone combined with red tone on her clothes represent that a woman is one of a lower class in society at this time, brown tone is a background color bring to viewer a heavy feeling, and this color was emphasized to face of the woman a little bit of sadness, a little bit of hopelessness in her life and her children. In this artwork, he used a rectangular shape of a wall and circle shapes for a child. They both give a viewer feeling about pressure and straitened for women. If we are noticing that in this artwork has leading lines. This line comes from three of her kids, it is creating a triangle.
...hese repeated vertical lines contrast firmly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, seems unchanging and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have a lot of depth to them.
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.
A medium is the material and tools used to construct the images with ideas that relate to the world. This image was made of many other pictures from the Funk and Wagnall encyclopedia. These different pictures were all pieced together to form a collage. A collage is one picture that has many different parts added. The collage was formed by sticking various materials onto a single canvas that made them one picture. Putting pictures together separately just shows how different they are and how unconnected everything truly is. With a collage there is no structure, there is not harmony and it is all thrown together without much neatness or organization. Especially since the artists has a conceptual style, and is more concerned with the overall idea. The other medium used is the plain black and white image. Some people may overlook this, but it shows how society is black and white, there is no in between. Simple colors are a medium that have a large impact on the picture. Their impact is so large because the whole meaning of the picture stems from the most abundant medium used. The colors used are a black canvas with white figures pasted on. The black and white trend is seen throughout Chin’s paintings and is the way he expresses every collage. This can be attributed to the separation of black and white that is still prevalent in our world. This can also relate to today’s society
Choose one piece of artwork from the unit. What type of balance does the artwork have? How does this balance affect the feeling or mood of the artwork?
This piece is acrylic, oilstick, and spray paint on wood panel that is 186.1 centimeters in height and 125.1 centimeters in width. This piece features a human-like figure in the center that is mostly half red and half black. This figure has a gray head with one yellow eye and one light gray eye and above its head is a black halo. The background consists of patches of various colors such as light blue, black, dark red, light green, beige, turquoise, pink, and yellow. On the bottle left corner there is a figure drawn that looks like a fish and has a strip of mustard yellow painted through it. Also towards the bottom right of the artwork, there is some drawn on letters that almost look like words but are messily painted over with a desert sand color. This piece is my favorite because I find it aesthetically pleasing. There is a lot going on in this piece that makes looking at it genuinely interesting. The colors that Basquiat choses for the background go very well together and overall compliment the figure in the center. I like how incredibly expressive this piece is and it makes me want to buy a canvas and start painting that I desire. I also like how the human-like figure is drawn. One could see what looks like an outlined ribcage on the figure, which makes me believe that the head is actually a skull. Upon further research I learned that Basquiat was
This depiction of Nebamun hunting in the marshes dates to around the late 18th dynasty . Its formal qualities depict that of an Egyptian scribe on an outing with his family, while utilising proportion to emphasise the Egyptian values and beliefs of the day. Further analysis reveals strong iconographic meaning, particularily in relation to the habitat surrounding Nebamun and his family. When studying the piece in relation to social context, we see how death and the Afterlife were an essential part of Egyptian life as a whole.
... right is the only part of the painting that has gold leaf in it, on her gown, what looks to be a gold collar, and a gold necklace with a pearl. The gold she is garnished in represents royalty and the holy. An interesting illusion is seen the left angel’s hair and how it’s illuminated by the sun creating a halo.
... though employing a familiar subject (the female form), shows the transformation from busy mosaics with gold embellishments to a brighter palate of colors and the use of stronger, bolder lines. The piece exemplifies his versatility as an artist.
The most emphasized part of this image is the man lying on top of the child and leaning against the bed, part of the body being directly in the center and seems to take up the most space, this is where the eye tends to linger. The negative space is made interesting by including a turned over chair, and rumpled sheets on a bed and other homely objects, which indicates that this is set in a home. The contrast that is shown in this artwork is through the use of value since Daumier used implied light, the brighter and darker areas create a contrast against each other. While this piece is not symmetrically balanced, it is balanced asymmetrically. It is asymmetrically balanced through a man and most of a bed being placed in the center, on the right is a small child, the upper torso of an older looking man, a chair next to him, and the rest of the bed; on the left of the man is most of what seems to be a woman, and other less detailed furniture. There is a sense of repetition through the positive shapes of the people lying on the floor, this is also shown through the use of line that creates the entire lithograph. This provides a sense of cohesiveness and unity throughout the
The style of the work is specified as an American art painting. The composition of the work may be broken down into eight parts. Unity, balance, movement, rhythm, focus, contrast, pattern, and proportion. The unity in this work all belong together, and there is nothing that is creating an awkward configuration. The balance
He then brings the elements together and purposefully and successfully uses movement to get the viewer’s attention within the sculpture. As the sculpture is moved by the air it is never in the same exact position gaining attention from the viewer, and creating an abstract and exciting piece. He also successfully uses the principle of proportion to draw the viewer’s eyes in a certain direction, giving the piece a nice flow and pleasing to the eyes. The organic shapes on the metal branches get smaller towards the end of the piece. The change in proportion makes the viewers eye glide from the large parts to the smaller parts of the
Light is represented and lines are thin and continuous, which are used both in outline and details. The artist mainly made Mary centralized since she is in the foreground of the painting. She is also bigger and brighter than Joseph. The proportion of three characters is realistic, they seemed just as normal people.