The Madonna and Child by Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni and La Toilette by Richard Miller

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Recommended: Impressionism easy of art

The Madonna and Child, created by Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni between 1410 and 1415, is an iconographic painting of the Virgin Mary (left) and a chubby baby Jesus (right). The panel is painted with tempera and the halos around Mary’s and Jesus’s heads are made from goldleaf. La Toilette, painted by Richard Miller in 1910, is an Impressionist painting of a woman putting on her make up. He uses this subject to compare putting on makeup to applying oil paint on a canvas. In order to create the desired impact on the viewer of their paintings, Cenni and Miller use similar stylistic techniques to portray their female subjects.
The backgrounds of both paintings are quite busy, allowing the artists to draw more attention to the female subjects’ faces and achieve their desired impression on the viewer. Madonna and Child’s background is created with warm colors of red and gold leaf, and remains cooler through the use of green. Many floral, leafy, organic shapes fill the background, contrasting with The Virgin Mary’s skin. Furthermore, her clothes are comprised of the same colors as the background, allowing her body to blend in with her surroundings. As a result, her soft, peach skin stands out, drawing the viewer attention to her face. In contrast to her busy, earthy surroundings, she looks pure and feminine. Cenni uses that contrast to create an untainted appearing Virgin Mary. Similarly to Cenni, Miller creates a harsh background using wild brushstrokes. However, the woman’s face is very soft, for Miller used smaller brushstrokes to gain a level of detail that is not possible using the larger brushstrokes seen in the background. The contrast also helps Miller portray the woman as more soft and feminine. Without the contrast, Miller w...

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...tal aspects to understand who the female subject is. Miller doesn’t used repetition; in fact, he doesn't use geometric or organic shapes at all. The lack of the use of shapes and repetition mimics the way a woman would put on makeup. Typically, makeup isn’t put on in perfect shapes, much less organically shaped patterns. The impressionist style reflects the message of this painting more accurately than a more classical style, like Cenni’s, could.
In the end, Cenni’s Madonna and Child and Miller’s La Toilette were able to convey a message onto their viewers through the use of light and shadow, distinguishing backgrounds from the main subjects, and through repetition. The Madonna and Child obviously represents The Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, while La Toilette successful exemplifies the similarities between a woman putting on make up and an artist painting a canvas.

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