Snow Flowers is a watercolor and gouache painting made by Henri Matisse. This painting also contains elements of collage, as the flowers in it were paper cut outs that were glued onto the multicolored watercolor and gouache background. Now “During the last decade of his long life, Henri Matisse produced some 270 paper cutouts.” (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Henri Matisse: Snow Flowers (1999.363.46). N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.)”
This painting was finished in 1951, which is only three years before Matisse’s death. During this time Matisse was already in poor health due to two operations that he had previously had, so his assistants had to color the sheets he would use with gouache before he cut out the shapes he needed. At this time Matisse stopped making paintings and instead focused on doing large paper cut out pieces as well as drawings.
“Later compositions, such as this one, focused on larger, bolder, and more simplified shapes. Here, the abstracted "snow flowers" are a mixture of white plant and petal forms, placed against a patchwork of bold color.” (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Henri Matisse: Snow Flowers (1999.363.46). N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.)
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Snow Flowers has characteristics and was inspired by many different traditional African artwork.
An example of some of the shared characteristics with African artwork would be the color palette of the piece. This painting contains the bright vibrant color palette that is synonymous with African work. These colors include a vibrant pink, orange, red, blue, green, and peach. Another characteristic that this piece shares with African artwork would be the roughness of the cut out shapes. The flowers in this painting are not cut with the smoothest lines. Instead they are cut very roughly giving the piece a rustic and more traditional look to
it. This painting is very simplistic with its style and look. Because the shapes of the flowers are so bold and simple it looks a bit like modern graphic design. The boldness of the shapes mixed with the simplistic colored background really creates a simple look that is still somewhat dramatic and appealing to the eye. Snow Flowers can also be viewed as a textile like design. Because the shapes, while different, are similar to each other they relate enough that it helps create a pattern that is interesting to look at. Most patterned designs can be turned into textiles that can be used for clothes, or blankets. In conclusion, Snow Flowers is a painting that helps mark the end of Matisse’s life as he had stopped painting, and instead focused on doing only large scale paper cut outs. This painting was very inspired by traditional African art. It could have also inspired future graphic design projects.
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...
Kim, Seungduk. “Yukio Nakagawa: La Fleur De L’ame / Nakagawa’s Extreme Ikebana: The Life And Death Of Flowers.” Art-Press 297 (2004): Art Source.
Throughout the Romanticism period, human’s connection with nature was explored as writers strove to find the benefits that humans receive through such interactions. Without such relationships, these authors found that certain aspects of life were missing or completely different. For example, certain authors found death a very frightening idea, but through the incorporation of man’s relationship with the natural world, readers find the immense utility that nature can potentially provide. Whether it’d be as solace, in the case of death, or as a place where one can find oneself in their own truest form, nature will nevertheless be a place where they themselves were derived from. Nature is where all humans originated,
CLS- His collages are made of complete natural pieces like sand, shells, leaves, sticks to give his compositions an abstract natural quality with all of the elements.
Since the days of the early Greeks, florigraphy - the language of flowers - has been used to convey "a wide range of human emotions, conditions, events, or ideas" (Seattle n. p.). From the "strength in character" of the gladiolus to the "delicate beauty" of the hibiscus, flowers are symbolic in the message and the image they produce (Tansy n. p.). Tennyson uses florigraphy to symbolize man’s desire to create the perfect Garden of Eden and to expose the contrary emotions the protagonist feels towards Maud. She is "associated with both lily and rose, as both a chaste subject and a sexual object" (Johnson 111). Traditionally, the lily symbolizes "coquetry and purity" and the rose symbolizes passion (Tansy n p.). Maud is the "shrinking reticence" of the lily when the protagonist is content with their relationship and the "aggressive...
Because of flowers’ popularity in Victorian England, Wilde’s use of floral imagery was purposeful and had some effect on the audience as a whole. Even stylistically, the language of the novel is flowery and dream-like. The question is why did Oscar Wilde use floral imagery in The Pic...
In “The Flowers,” by Alice Walker, the flowers are used throughout the story to symbolize the beauty and naivety of childhood. In the beginning of the story the author shows the main character Myop walking down a path along the fence of her farm. Myop sees “an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges…” The flowers are bright and colorful, reminding the reader of an innocent type of beauty often associated with them. This suggests the flowers were inserted in the story by Walker to reveal how young and innocent Myop appears to be. Later in the story, after Myop had discovered the dead body of a man who seemed to have been hung “Myop laid down her flowers,”. As Myop put down the flowers she was also putting down the last of her innocence.
Initially, an explication provides an understanding of the internal workings of the finished poem, to identify the differences between the two. Frost’s poem, “Design” begins in a most uncomplicated way: “I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, / On a white heal-all, holding up a moth / Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—” The spider, described as such, denotes jolly innocence, an unlikely association. Introducing the first of several ironies, the heal-all preserves life and yet the connection to death is evident. The flower provides a stage for the spider, menacing in spite of its pale disguise. Frost’s white color scheme persists into the moth simile, poor dead thing. Satin, typically equated with rich finery, finds a meaning much less elegant with the adjective, “rigid.” Each line zooms closer to the scene at hand, no doubt something is just not right. Line four continues the mood with, “Assorted characters of death and blight,” and adds to the feeling of impending doom. Death and blight signify a veering away from the norm. Each represents something untoward. The heal-all flower sits de...
Henri Matisse was famous for his unique movements and styles of art. He was best known as a Fauve painter, and was a large part of the modern art movement. He contributed to modern art, by keeping up with the artistic movements and trends, but also held on to the classical artistic styles of the past. While his work continued some of the stylitsic qualities of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, he was interested and involved, mostly, in Fauvism. He, like many other artists of this movement, emphasized strong colors over realistic and basic colors, found in Impressionism. One of his most famous pieces, The Dance (1909-1910) had two versions. The first piece, Dance I, resembled that of more classical styles of art, with its
Through his “choreographed” letters, Massoudy gives physical form to emotions and ideas. For example, in his work “I love a flower that is slow to blossom,” (See Figure 2) he shapes the word “flower” with curves that resemble petals. The word “flower” is repeatedly written in green ink to form a leaf, or a garden speckled with red and yellow flowers. The quote written out in a straight line evokes the image of a stem.
There is no art, music, and literature like here in sub-Saharan Africa. What is important to Westerners, such as the artist, label, and static-like wall hanging, means nothing to us. African art is living, spiritual, and meant to go back to the Earth once the soul of the item has run out. As the Bamana of Mali say, the art are “things that can be looked at without limit”. Our artwork has changed, emerged, and survived eras of turmoil and inversely, hope. I have found passing through the global gateway into Africa has made me appreciate this culture more, and appealed to me on a level that made me choose being a part of it.
For my extra credit I have decided to select the Winter’s Tale and discuss some of the horticulture aspects that were highlighted in its text. One aspect that was mentioned on our last quiz was the conversation between Perdita and Polixenes, in regards to “nature’s bastards” and regular carnations. I chose this particular topic because I found it fascinating and I was intrigued by the completely different perspectives of the two people. In the conversation they started arguing about which flower was better and more “superior”, the one with the striped and pied appearance that had been hand crafted, or the plain, solid colored one which was solely crafted by nature itself. Within this argument, the reader is able to infer that there is a plant
Kasfir, S. L. (2007) African Art and the Colonial Encounter: Inventing a Global Commodity, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Most art has some sort of reason or purpose behind it. It might be religious, symbolic, literal, traditional, customary, or just a preference by the artist. Most African art has a symbolic reason. Masks, pottery, figures, portraits, jewelry, baskets and clothing reflect the religious belief of the different tribes. Africans believed that everything in nature is alive. For example: rocks, grass, plants, trees, rivers and mountains. African art was not popular and was looked down upon until recently. In Nigeria, people were tattooed as a test of courage. The figure- “Portrait Head of a King (Oni)” reflects this. The King has this tattooing on his entire face. The King has big slanted eyes, a prominent nose, and big full lips. All these things represented something to the Nigerian people; the King...
Nature as imagery is a largely spread idea in most of Frosts poems. However he is not telling us about nature or trying to explain nature to us, rather, he is using it as a source of narrative to metaphorically position something else. This, we can deduce,...