Step 3:
Spend the next ½ hour or so familiarizing your self with the artist and his or her work. Choose 1-3 paintings on which to turn your focus. By Monday at 3:00 p.m., you will post three pages (1000 words) on these paintings in the comment stream below. See Step 4 for hints and practices for writing on art; how to turn an image, even the most abstract, into written discourse.
Step 4:
Choose 1 – 3 paintings and try to describe them to the best of your ability. Paint a replica of the image with your own words. Can you make your reader “see” what you are seeing. This is an important step in the process of writing this research paper for a few reasons: First, you will need this descriptive writing in your essay to aid your analysis. Second, you will learn things about the piece of art by forcing yourself to stare at it with the attention needed to describe it. Last, what you see may be different from what others do, not just the abstract work, but what are your eyes drawn to first? You will never be able to get this moment back--what your eyes noticed when you were first drawn to the painting / or piece of art. You will also need this writing when you start to compile your formal research paper.
“Helpful Hints” to enhance your descriptive powers:
- Spend as much time as possible “free writing” about the image prior to doing any research. You can always edit this down if you feel that the writing is stale or redundant. Free writing is best done with fresh eyes as a first response, and can be edited after you know the image well. This can be tedious if you are in the middle of trying to arrange your argument and realize your paper is just not long enough.
- When describing colors, expand your vocabulary. There is no such thing as pure yellow. Maybe you mean lemon yellow or canary yellow or cadmium yellow or saffron. Check out these colors for ideas, but stick to colors that your audience will be able to visualize. For example, I can’t picture alice blue, but I can picture aqua and royal blue.
- If the image is particularly abstract, focus on the emotions that the artist is trying to express. Do the lines create a sense of movement? Does the painting seem to speed up time, or slow it down? Ask your self creative questions and answer them.
POST 1000 WORD DESCRIPTIONS HERE. ALL CLASSES.
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Jay Defoe’s Work
After spending some time looking at some of jay’s work I’ve managed to pick two different pieces that she has created. The first is called “Song of Innocence”, the second is called “Makara”. The reason I have chosen these two pictures is because each one has interesting detail to it and it almost speaks to you if looking at it long enough.
So the first painting that I will describe is “Song of Innocence” which at first looks to be a whitish black blotch of inky liquid splashing into the air, or whitish smoke. In the background more of a darker black color with some small remnants of white from the liquid/smoke which is along side the painting. In the center of the painting there is that liquid/smoke which is where my eye goes to first goes to when I first took a look at this painting. When tilting you head a little upward it kind of looks like a volcano erupting, just the volcano itself is all black with the center being the hole of where the “lava” or white liquid/smoke. The “lava” looks to be like a fan or a wave coming down about to fall down the volcano.
Another image I got from looking at this painting was two evil spirits or ghost looking figures in the center of the picture that have faces that of a skeleton. The ghost on the right of the picture doesn’t really have a top or a back to his head; it is just kind of chopped out. The ghost on the left starts out with his forehead, and then it moves down to bumps which look like they could be the eye brow bones of the ghost skeletons face. Move down a little more and there aren’t eyes, but just dark spots where the eyes should be and it makes the face look a whole lot more like a face. Move down a bit more and there is a speck of black which could be where the nose once was, which only farther develops what looks to be like a skeletons face. Go down past the nose whole and you have a kind of dent in the face which could be like the mouth, which doesn’t look like it would have lips, but more of just a chunk of the face taken off. Along the lines of that there is a kind of long scaly chin which extends outward right in front of the skeleton ghost who is to the right of this skeleton ghost. If you look at the chin it is all scaly which goes all the way to the right side of the face, getting a kind of side way view of the skeleton to the left. Around the side of the skeletons face it’s scaly but also looks like there is seaweed on the side so it could be one of those things. One could also say the face looks like it is starting to turn to stone and crumble on the side and it’s working its way across the skeleton’s face.
The skeleton has a solid like theme to it, unlike the other skeleton which looks to be more of a ghost skeleton with a much smoother, gas-like face. So the skeleton ghost on the right has a kind of aura around the top of its head that almost resembles fire. Going along down the face you can also see lumps that would be the eye brow bones except they are deformed, the one on the left being much bigger then the right one and the side of the eye or even the head looks to be broken off so it’s half an eye hole basically. The other eye whole is kind of small and square. Go down a little more and you can see a nose hole and top teeth, but not a lower jaw. Finally you have the rest of its aura going around it and it looks like the right skeleton head is whispering something to the left one and that is what I got out of viewing this painting.
The second painting that I will describe is called “Makara” and this painting shows what looks to be a half seal, half dragon stuck in what I think is a giant shell while it’s facing upward holding a little shell in its flipper/paw. I will start from the top of the painting and work my way down describing in much detail about what is in the painting it’s self. It starts with a shell and moves down to the head of the seal dragon, which has it’s mouth wide open like a duck bill and no teeth, but kind of bristles like a blue whale. On its nose it appears to have whiskers like the Chinese dragon. The eyes are clear and lifeless but its brow is up and when you look at the seal dragon sideways, it looks like its depressed or in pain. Going down to the back of the head it has wolf like ears and its neck looks like a seal. Next we go to its arms which look like paws and it’s holding that shell I was talking about earlier. The shell has a kind of spiral shape to it starting from the outside of one end and ending in the inside center. After we move down to more of the body of the seal dragon which is still seal like, but it has scales which are shaped like little bumps. Following that is the tail which is incased in the shell that it is trapped in and just like the shell it is holding, the tail is going in a spiral with the shell till it hits the center of it. The colors I picked up on where mostly emotionless gray, but if you move down to around the stomach of the beast, it is a whitish maroon color which then goes on to the tail which becomes a little pick then orange then it goes back to gray once again around the tip. This is what I saw from viewing this painting
The mouth is the first thing that gets my attention. It’s an eggshell colored beak, with darker shaded areas. It has two rows of teeth, three on the bottom and the top. The inside of the things beak is a firebrick red. I also notice another small row of teeth at the bottom of the beast mouth. These teeth appear sharp. After the sharp teeth and beak like mouth, the next thing my eyes move to is the face. The head is brightest at the top it’s a ghost white. Then there are areas that are darker and more of a gray color than others. The beast eyes are very strange. They are a dull lemon yellow. They look to me to be best described as a folded donut. Because they seem shut and they are very round in texture. There is also shading on the right side of the eye, indicating that the light is coming from the upper left side of the painting. The forehead of the beast seems bird like also. It has a part in the middle of it, and again some parts are darker than the others. It also seems to be a ghost white color. Above the eyes and the forehead I noticed a shell type cover over the head. It looks to be a protecting cover for its head. It’s a lot brighter than the forehead but I would also describe it as a ghost type white color. It looks to be bone like due to the smooth texture and its shape. The shape is like this, it has two round edges and a pointed narrow piece that sticks forward like a horn. This covering also has some parts of it like in the middle that is darker than the other sides. Right under this coverings shadow is where this beast’s hair begins to appear. Its hair is long and it stretches out to all the way down its neck. Its color is more of a bright gold color. Under the head piece it is darker and more shaded. But following down its neck it is brighter on top of the neck and more of a darker gold as you follow the hair down its growth pattern. Its pattern is very similar to the growth pattern of a horse. Also due to the way the hair grows its noticeable the beast hair is also long and thick like a horse’s neck. It is not possible though to see the color or the texture of the neck because the hair is long and it completely covers the neck. Another thing about this painting is the facial expression that is being transmitted by the beast. Its open mouth and head jerked back is an indicator that the beast seems to be in rage because of something. The next thing in the painting that is brought to my attention is right below the head. The head seems to be trying to reach this cloth like material that is flowing towards the viewer. This beast’s body in itself looks to be a bunch of cloth like material that is flowing in different directions due to the wind. But this one particular cloth that is a grapefruit color share the attention with the head. The cloth is damaged with rips. It looks damaged and worn. Parts of it are darker and other parts are lighter than the others. All the pieces of it seem to be flowing in the same direction. One patches of the cloth the one that is farthest the right there is a small patch of lemon yellow color. It is a lemon yellow and the area that is this color is in an upside down triangle shape. If I continue down the middle of the painting the next thing brought to my attention is in the background. In the background in the distant there is what looks to be a mountain. This mountain is turquoise in color at the root of the mountain and later turns lighter is to a snow like white because of the lighting. The left side of this mountain is darker on the right side because of the angle of the light. In front of this mountain there is a plain on which the beast is running on. Also in the distant along with the mountain there are other less noticeable mountains in the distant. But looking beyond the mountains in the sky of the painting there are storm clouds. I say storm clouds because they have a blue color to them on top but on the bottom of the clouds it becomes a grayish-blue. These clouds look to begin in the middle were this mountain is ant hey stretch across the whole sky of the painting. With my eyes I follow these clouds that stretch out across the skies and begin to open up more towards the top of the painting. At the root of the clouds they begin darker but as the continue to the top of the painting they become brighter and cover less of the clouds. So these clouds open up more above the beasts. So as I follow these clouds they bring my attention to the arms of this beast. It has two arms. On the right there is a vomit green colored arm raised towards the sky. I noticed this arm first because it is brighter is color than the darker reddish orange arm o n the left. The hand on the right is the same color as its forearm. The hand is pointed towards the sky with the palms facing towards the viewer. Following the arm it turns into a dark red color which then meets the shoulder that is a bright lemon yellow. The other arm has more red to it at the arm and shoulders stretching to the abdomen. Following the abdomen it leads me to the left leg. Which is a dark gold like yellow. This leg is a also cloth like in texture. This leg looks to have a beast like dog sticking out of it. This dog is reaching towards the sky, and it has arms sticking out of it. The leg on the right is a violet blue. The foot has spikes on the bottom. This foot is raised and looks like the beast is about to stomp down with it. This is my views on the description of this painting by Max Ernst.
The artist I have chosen to research is Sandy Skoglund and the painting that I have chosen to describe is called “Babies at the Paradise Pond”. Skoglund has a unique way of showing her imagination through art. Some of it I have never seen before which drew me to her work and some of her work is plain old strange just like this piece.
The first thing that catches my attention in this painting is the babies all over the place. There are nude babies walking all around the pond and it’s almost like no one around them notice them. This is weird because most people would run to a babies needs but in the painting it’s almost like the adults are oblivious to them. There are four babies walking up the hill. One of the babies standing up is turned away so all that is visible of him is the back of his head. There is another baby that is walking towards the baby that is facing away. It looks like the baby is trying to tell him something. This is ironic because babies can’t talk. So it’s almost like they are talking to each other in their own language. It reminds me of an invasion of aliens. There are also 17 other babies rolling around in the grass, but it doesn’t look like it’s in a playful way. It looks like the babies are either asking for help or they are angry. And some of the babies are actually crying in this painting. Others have their arms raised like they want someone to come over and pick them up off the ground. This painting also reminds me of injured soldier’s looking for help on the battle field. Some of the babies also look like they are tanning in the sun.
The babies are not the only people in this painting, there are also eight other adults and a dog in this painting as well. There are two men and two women in the painting that are distinguishable. But not one of them notices the babies. They all actually have their faces turned away from them. Like the baby that facing away, all the adults are the same. All that is visible of the adults are their back side. Two of the adults are walking down the hill towards the pond. The woman is wearing a long pale yellow shirt and black pants. And the man is wearing all black. The other two are right next to the pond. One is standing and the other is sitting with her knees to her chest. And the other two are the same. There is another adult that is sitting next to a tree and facing the pond. And the last adult is sitting in the middle of the grass field look towards the pond as well. But he isn’t very visible because a tree is blocking him a little bit. All of the adults are look at the pond but there is nothing going on in the pond. The water looks very still with no movement at all. And last there is a dog sniffing around in the grass. But it doesn’t look like he belongs to anyone because no one is paying any attention to him.
The nature in this painting is very interesting. Usually when people go out to a pond or a lake they wait until it nice out side. But in this painting the lighting is grey so it makes it look like it is cloudy but there are barely any clouds in the sky. There are many trees in the background of this painting. But all the trees look dried up, like it is winter time and all the leaves have fallen off the trees. The only trees that seem to have leaves or pines are the pine trees. Which are the only trees that usually have leaves during the winter. There is lots of grass shown in this picture as well. On the side of the pond where the babies are, there is a hill with grass that leads all the way down to the pond. On the left side of the painting the hill looks a little steep, but as you look over to the right of the painting the hill turns into a flat surface of grass. There is a branch of a tree coming out of the left side of the painting. It is a very dark branch, it look black, which is very unusual because branches are not usually that dark. There is also a tree with out any leaves in the middle of the field of grass. There is also like an island on the other side of the pond that is covered with trees. Again with no leaves on them. The trees that are on the other side of the pond look like they have snow on them because it looks like the branches are very weak. There are also more trees in the distance that are on the left side of the painting but those trees look like they are lively. On the island there looks like there are birds surrounding a person in a circle. This is creepy because there look like there is no way that you could possibly get to the other side of that pond. It also looks like there is mist coming from the water of the pond. The mist is near the trees that look lively in the distance.
The pond itself is a little strange because there is no sign of movement in the water. The wind usually makes the water have some sort of movement, but the water is very still. So it may be that there is no wind. This is also strange because it makes it seem like it is not cold outside, and it makes not sense why there are no leaves on the trees. The in the pond also has a very big reflection that would normally come from the sunlight but there is no sun to be found in this painting. There is also a small boat along the side of the pond. No one is in it and it looks like no one plans to go in it either. There is also something in the middle of the water in the pond. It looks almost like a bomb that was calmly placed in the water. All this negativity makes it seem that this pond wasn’t a paradise pond after all.
Roy Lichtenstein has many abstract and concrete artwork. It looks as if his artwork came from a comic strip. Lichtenstein uses a combination of colors and patterns. Some of his artworks show people, while others show landscapes or furniture. Two of his artwork that show furniture is “Interior with Mobile” and “The Den”. Another art piece that is worth observing is “Still Life with Crystal Bowl”.
The first art piece is called “Interior with Mobile”. This art piece shows a bedroom. In the bedroom, there is a bed, two side tables on the left and right side of the bed, a bureau, a mirror right above the bureau, and a mobile on the bottom left of the painting. The painting above the bed shows a rectangular prism and small sphere. The room looks very organized and left untouched. The room must be for one person since there’s one pillow on the bed. Also in the room there is a bureau that has nine drawers. On the bureau, there is a small yellow vase with a plant on it. In the mirror, there is a reflection of another room with a couch and a painting that looks exactly like the painting above the bed. There is also another mirror to the left of the couch. In this painting, Lichtenstein uses bold black outlines on each of the objects and doesn’t use a wide variety of colors. The colors that stick out are orange and navy blue. Lichtenstein uses a stripe pattern and dot pattern on the walls, in the painting, on the table, and on the mobile. Lichtenstein uses a dot pattern to show that there is shadow. The dot pattern is seen on the shades of the lamp, the wall on the left side, and on the bed.
The next art piece is called “The Den”. This painting shows a small part of the room. Lichtenstein uses bold black outlines for each of the objects. There is a chair, glass table, a wooden table, and a row of tall glass windows. This painting is similar to “Interior with Mobile”. Lichtenstein uses a few variety of colors. He uses yellow-orange, cadmium red deep, and steel blue light. The rest of the painting are black and white patterns. This room looks organized and left untouched. Looks very peaceful and has a few furniture. This looks like a room someone would have in a wealthy city condominium. The room has a comfortable environment. The room looks as if it came from a middle class house. The patterns Lichtenstein uses are similar to the patterns from “Interior with Mobile”. The pattern is used on the walls, the floor, and on the wooden table. The wall has a stripe pattern and the wall perpendicular to it has a dot pattern. The floor has a weave-liked pattern. The wooden table has a wooden pattern. The glass table is located to the left of the couch. The glass table has a flower vase with yellow-orange flowers on it. The wooden table is located on the right of the couch. On top of the wooden table is glass which has a yellow-orange lamp and a yellow-orange paper. On the striped wall there is a picture with a red frame that has a picture of an envelope and a letter that unfolds. This room looks more like an office room. The colors make each object in the room stick out. The patterns looks mesmerizing. Since Lichtenstein used black and white patterns look mesmerizing, he uses color to add life to the painting. This room looks as if it were to be connected to the “Interior with Mobile” painting. The chair looks very comfy and is facing towards the right of the painting. There is a tall window behind the chair. The furniture in this painting looks expensive and classy.
The next art piece is called “Still Life with Crystal Bowl”. In this painting there is a crystal bowl with fruit on it. Lichtenstein used bold black outlines for each of the objects. He uses apple red, yellow orange, midnight blue, and a dark green. The rest of the painting is black and white patterns. The crystal bowl is set up in the middle of the painting. The crystal bowl looks large. Large enough to hold a good amount of fruit. It is on a white table and in front of a striped black and white wall. The stripes on the wall are going are going horizontal. The crystal bowl is very detailed and looks expensive. The crystal bowl is the only detailed object in the painting. The fruit aren’t very detailed and has a cartoon look to it. The shadows on the crystal bowl are stripes. There are small crystal diamonds shaped decorations that go along the crystal bowl. The edges on the crystal bowl have a bumpy look to it. On the bumpy edges are patterns that go along the edges. The fruit in the crystal bowl are grapes, oranges, bananas, and apples. The apples are have a shine to them and so do the grapes. The fruit look perfectly set up so that it looks well organized. This painting is similar to his other paintings because he uses black and white patterns, but also uses color to bring life to the painting. Though, this painting looks plain and nothing much going on. The background is not mesmerizing unlike his other paintings. The grapes aren’t all the same oval shape. Some of the grapes have a more circular shape rather than an oval shape. The midnight blue grapes looks like they are hanging out on the edge of the crystal bowl. The bananas has a bold black outline in the middle of it to show the edges where the banana is peeled. The oranges are not perfectly circular shape. They have an oval shape and has no details on them. Below the crystal bowl is a base that holds up the crystal bowl. The crystal base has bumpy edges that go along the sides of it.
The artist that I choose is Sandy Skoglund who is a photographer. Her artworks are eye- catching and interesting. She combines real human beings with some sculptures in the photos. There are always great differences in colors between the real human beings and the sculptures. I choose to look at three different artworks, “Walking on eggshells” (1997), “Shimmering Madness” (1998) and “Picnic on Wine” (2003), which are also created recently.
“Walking on eggshells” is set in a bathroom with a bathtub, a sink, a toilet and a mirror. All of them are in the same color, the color of eggshell. Those fixtures have rough surfaces; just like handmade from dough but it is hard. The wall is made of lots of square tiles with animal figures. There is no shininess on the tiles. The tiles are also in eggshell color, actually all settings in the bathroom are in the same color, while the figures on the tiles are in mars orange. The floor is made up of eggshells. There are some footprints on the floor which probably made by the two people in the bathroom when they walked into it. Looking at the footprints, the eggshells are broken, but there is no egg white or egg yolk in between. The eggshells on the floor should be empty. There are approximate ten snake and three rabbit sculptures on the floor. Those three rabbits are like interacting with three snakes. The pairs of rabbit and snake on the right and at the back are facing each other. The last rabbit is looking at one of the snake which with its other end inside the toilet. Two pairs of snakes are with each other and the rest three are alone. There are also two nude women in the photo. Their backs are facing the front and with only one foot on the ground while the other one is holding in the air. One of them is carrying a towel and about to reach the bathtub. The other one is in front of the sink and mirror but looking down. The picture is like make up of two different worlds, one is for the human beings while the other one is for the animals. Each of them ignores the existence of the other; and seems like they do not see each other.
The second one that I choose is “Shimmering Madness”. It is very colorful. It is just like a lot of colorful dots in my first sight. There are three human sculptures and two nude real human beings. Although the picture is full of colorful dots, the dots on the wall are totally different than the dots that make up the floor and the sculptures. It is hard to tell what is on the wall from observing the picture on her website. However, I found that they are paper butterflies in a larger version. Thousands of hand-made paper butterflies are stick on the wall, which is black originally. The floor and the sculptures are made up of jellybeans in different colors. There are like millions of jellybeans in the picture. Those three human sculptures are like women and they are dancing. It is interesting that their heads are spun back. Three of them are placed with an equal distance. The two nude people, one is woman and one is man, have a totally different color with the whole room. They have the color of blanched almond. The woman is bald and with one foot standing on the ground and the other one is holding in the air. She looks like in a motion of dancing or running. The man is inverted while his head is on the ground and the feet are on top with his hands supporting his body. He is like playing around. The sculptures are placed in the front of the photos while the two human are at the back; which make the sculptures look larger than the human. The two human beings are in between the sculptures. All of them are like dancing and playing; maybe they are in the party. The colorful room is just like a disco.
The last one is called “Picnic on Wine”. It is really eye-catching. The scene is a typical picnic site; a sunny day with blue sky and snow white clouds, a calm sea, some trees and grasses in lime green. The eye-catching thing is the red thing all around the grass. They look like roses, but actually they are millions of cups with red liquid inside; it should be wine according to the title of the picture. There is a tree on the top right hand corner which looks like cartoon. It comes from nowhere and just appears, and the leaves are shiny. Two human sculptures are placed on the cups of wine. They are green in color which with a texture of grass. One of them is looking to the right side of the picture while the other one is looking at the sea which is far away. The sea is really calm which looks like no movement except the position that around a boat. Three human beings are on the grass with cups of wine around them. The two women wear red dresses, one of them has black hair and the other one has golden hair. This seems to be the only different between them, in terms of their appearance. The one with golden hair is sitting on the grass and looking down. The other one lies on the grass the looking at the front. There is a man with brown skin sitting behind those women. He is too far away to see clearly what he is really doing. Those three human beings are like from three different cultures or simply in different races. The human sculptures and the three real human beings are having picnic on the wine.
There is a combination of sculptures and real human beings in all those three artworks. The pictures look fake but they are real photos. Sandy Skoglund presents a unique, interesting, and creative way in her artworks.
The three paintings I have chosen are done by Alice Neel. In most of her work the people are either sitting or lying down but still seem to have a sense of power. The people she painted where based on things going on in her life, or actual people that she knew or were in her community. These three pictures I have chosen all have people that show pride and strength.
The first picture I have chosen is called Elenka. It is of a woman who looks to be in her mid-forties who is sitting relaxed. The first thing I was drawn to when I looked at this painting was the woman’s eyes. They are baby blue which makes her look unique because she has tan skin. Another thing that I have noticed with her eyes is that they do not match the emotion her lips are presenting. The smile line goes past her lips which makes it appear as if she is happy. But, if you cover her lips her eyes have a stern expression. If you don’t cover her hand it adds to the expression and makes her seem lost in thought. The clothes and make up she wears shows that she has wealth. She also wears a ring which could mean she is married. The whole presentation of her reminds me of a queen. She sits properly to show she has proper etiquette and if you look at her hand again with the whole painting it makes it look like she thinks highly of herself. Her hair is something else that adds to her resemblance of a queen. It is a golden brown color and is rounded like a crown. This painting is calm, and has a feeling of wealth and royalty.
The next picture I have chosen is called Kenneth Fearing. This painting is full of action. The skeleton with an object that has bleed pouring out is what I noticed first because the red is a bright color and not really used in this painting. It is located near the mans heart wear his shirt is torn which makes me believe it is his heart. This could represent the emptying of his heart until there is nothing left. A person with no heart does not care about the well being of others; he is cold. The man looks like a skeleton himself because of the indents in his cheek. In front of him are little figures who appear to be people. The carry unknown objects and walk as if they are zombies. One of them is lying on the ground bleeding. In front of the man is also wedded couple a little bit bigger than the other people. Behind them is a man of the same size with no legs. Behind the regular sized man is what looks like a theater. It resembles the Globe from Shakespeare’s time. The sections are rooms that contain people. It is unknown if they are small like the people in front of him or his size. On his left people are interacting with one another. Slightly above them is a man with his arms up in the air. Because they lean more to his back he is joyous. If they were leaning to the front it would have meant sorrow, and pleading for happiness. Everything around the regular sized man could just be the thoughts in his head. If you notice the figure near his left arm looks as if it is appearing. Or this could be his kingdom; he resembles a powerful political figure. The man sits up straight with a cigarette in his mouth and arms and hands are placed on the table like a king with a firm belief, demanding things be done his way. His size also adds to his placement. The main character in this painting is also perceived as a powerful person like the first picture I chose except has more to do with the government.
The final picture I have chosen is called Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch with Alice Neel. This picture is very lively. It has bright candy colors and a lot movement. What I was first drawn to in this picture was the object on the man’s forehead which looks like a closed eyelid. Third eye could represent wisdom since if you see more you know more. The next thing I was drawn to was the flute in his hand. The section near his hand is translucent. As a whole it seems to blend in with his clothing. If squint and look at his face the flute looks like it becomes a part of him. The bright colors in this picture on a black background remind me of the chalk children use to draw on the side walk. This makes the man look friendly even though he has on a serious face and a suit. The background also reminds me of a chalkboard for which teachers use to right down formulas for learning. This is what can be connected to the third eye. A teacher is wise, and also a leader. This man is like a leader. He has his hand raised up in a fist which could mean power and a representation of what he believes in. The man grips his flute like a staff. A staff is used as an aid for walking and climbing and also used as a weapon. In the past a shepherd has been seen with a staff. A shepherd is a man who protects, guides, and watches. This picture is another example of someone who is of power.
These three pictures in their own way show a sense of power and pride. The difference between the character of this last picture and the other two characters is he is more toward the spiritual side. He seems to be more for the people than himself. The character of the second picture just wanted power and to have things done his way. The woman in the first painting seemed to be focused all on herself. All of these pictures by Alice Neel show full emotion on the faces of the characters and are represented by the colors presented in each painting.
The artist that I have chosen is Henri Rousseau for my research paper I pick three of his works. I chose him because I find his works interesting there is a lot of words in his paintings and I like the way he show his imaginations it looks like weird but full of meanings.
The first painting is called “Dream” every time I look at the painting I always see the nude woman not because she was nude but the attention was in her. She is sitting in a brown sofa maybe where she sleeps and she was staring at the flowers. As I observed in the painting there are many different colors around her there is a blue and yellow flowers and the leaves are also have different colors, in her right hand that covers her arm it looks like a leaf but it looks like a flower it might be the leaves of the blue flower next to her. If we got fooled by the colors we cannot see that there’s some animals behind the plants. If we see the flower she was trying to reach there is an elephant behind it, above the elephant we can see that there’s a lot of orange seventeen of them but the other one is a bird, underneath the bird there’s stripe and a vertical thing looks like a beak of a bird its color yellow but if we look at it closely its a monkey that looks like a human playing an instrument. In front of the monkey that looks like a woman there are two lions there the other one in the left is staring at the nude woman or at the flower and the other one is like staring at your eyes. The artist named it “Dream” because it looks like a dream there’s a lot of weird things happening. The background is cool and a little weird because the sky looks like daylight but there’s a moon between the two trees. what makes me confuse in this paintings is the striped color blue, red, brown, orange and dark brown. when the first time I saw it I thought it was a bird because The instrument she have playing looks like a beak and she either looks like a monkey or a women a black woman.
I think Rousseau made this painting based on his dreams or imaginations and he express what he seen in the painting and show what it look like.
The second painting is called “Snake Charmer” what caught attention in this painting is the black figure is like a monkey or a women maybe and also playing an instrument just like in the first one. The artist named it “snake charmer” because its like she is attracting the snakes with her flute or piccolo and with a snake around her neck. As i count it there’s four of them the snakes, first snake is in front of the bird and second snake is in front of the first snake in front of the bird, third snake is the snake that is hanging around her shoulder ad fourth snake is in the tree trying to reach the monkey that looks like a woman playing an instrument which is a flute. The back ground of the painting is green it looks like day light but the sun looks like a moon. I counted the animals in the painting there’s eight of them if we don’t notice there’s a three birds in the tree one loner and 2 pairs they’re might be couples “love birds” The lone bird’s color is red and its wings is black its right behind the big snake in the tree the same color as the snake looks like snake’s head, And the couples is right next to the red bird but we cant see it easy because its color is like the leaves they have white beaks and looking at the lone bird like making him jealous.
The last but not the least my favorite called “Sleeping Gypsy” The painting is very simple but its like telling something, The center of attraction is the lion standing next to the woman sleeping. The background is green and there’s one moon six stars and far away there’s a clouds that looks like a mountains. The place where the black lady is sleeping is a dessert because what I see, there is no trees, grass or water around her. I also noticed something that the lion if I look at his body its a lion but when I look in his face it looks like a sheep his eyes is round and his nose looks exactly just like the sheep and the lion suppose to have a whiskers and fangs.
The woman looks like too exhausted because she is just lying down maybe she walk from very very far places and she is just getting some rest. I wonder why is she lying in some certain place such as dessert she doesn’t know if she is safe or in danger because the sheep-headed lion is like smelling her or maybe she was a shepherd because of the stick in her hand the guitar and the jar next to her she might be playing guitar if she got bored and drink if she feels thirsty and the stick she is using to protect herself. Last thing there is missing in her body I cant see her left arm I wonder if she could play the guitar without her left hand. I think the sheep-headed lion might be her pet or some wild animals looking for food to eat.
I think that the painting is telling how hard to be a shepherd or how dangerous sleeping in a dessert and while you are sleeping there’s a sheep-headed sneaking around her or maybe the sheep-headed lion is watching her sleep they might be friends and the woman is drank because the bottle looks like a bottle that full of wine or alcohol. and she just lie down and sleep.
Work Of Gerhard Richter
The artist that I've Chose to pick is Gerhard Richter. I feel Gerhard Richter is an astonishing artist. I'm not really into art but just by observing Gerhard Richter's work I can see he is the Tiger woods of art. He has work in so many different categories it's amazing, and the wide varieties he has to offer makes it easier for me to relate to his paintings and express my feelings. The category that I've chosed to pick paintings from is Death. Now as you look at the paintings that are labeled under death you will find German soldier figures and Nazi leaders like Hitler. All which relate to the background of Gerhard Richter. What I mean by his background was that he was born in Dresden, Germany, and many of his relatives were involved in the Nazi movement. As Gerhard Richter was surrounded by death at a young age his mother pointed him towards art, which he had a ridicuously good talent for. So this is where I see Gerhard Richter coming up with his certain pin pointed Nazi movement paintings and art work from. The two paintings I've chosen to interpret are the "Hitler of 1962" and the "Herr Heyde of 1965". Both which relate in many different ways and are fabulous to explain.
The first painting I've chose was the Hitler painting of 1962. I picked this painting because there is a great amount of history behind it, and also seems very interesting to explain. The first thing I seemed to notice when I looked at this painting is the way his hand is in a backhand motion. But with kowledge about the history of the Hitler era I came to a conclusion that the hand motion he is showing is how everyone use to salute him. They would have there hand like that at there forehead and wave down towards the chest screaming "Hi Hitler", so that was very interesting to see. Also the way Gerhard Richter has his face expressed came to my attention. If you were to see old videos of Hitler he was always yelling and had crazy looks on his face. But this painting shows as if he is making a speech and is yelling out among the crowd. He is dressed in his Nazi suit in this painting and seems to have a military badge or stripe on his top right shoulder in white. What I didnt understand about this painting was what is the big reason for all the white in the background. I figured Gerhard Richter painted it like this to make Hitler stand out, because in his day and throughout his life Hitler did stand out among the crowd. Also the white in the background is clean in all spots except for the bottom left of the painting which I found odd. It looks to be a burn mark of some sort, which relates to Hitler one hundread percent. It seems that this painting can be seen as a reflection also due to the fact that above his head seems to be a reflection of another part of the military uniform. The reason I come to this conclusion and the most obvious fact of all is if you look to the top right of this painting you can see a symbol imbeaded into something, also it has a fade and smudge type look to it. The reason I would say it is a uniform in the first place is that every german soldier wore a Swatzsticker patch on him and that is exactly what that is. A Swatzsticker is considered one of the most hated symbols in the world and was worn by the german soldiers during the Nazi era. This is what I came up with as I examined the Hitler painting of 1962. I also see this painting as one of the best paintings Gerhard Richter created under the death category of his collection.
The second painting I chose was the "Herr Heyde of 1965". I chose this painting because I see it relating to the Hitler painting in many aspects and also has a great amount of history behind it. Unlike the Hitler painting this one is very blurry as if it was a previous photograph. If you take a look at the way it's painted the stroke of the paint seems to be going back and fourth in the same direction. This a painting of Werner Heyde when he was arrested by a german officer in 1959. Werner Heyde was a german psychiatrist who was one of the main organizers of the Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia program. In this painting Gerhard Richter makes it clear of who is the German officer and who is Werner Heyde by the details in their top hats. I feel Gerhard Richter did a terrific job of making dark shadows in the background of both the officer and Werner Heyde's face. As I read on Werner Heyde I found out that he had kept his idenity on a low profile and liked to remain silent. As you look at the painting you see all the dark shaded parts around Werner Heyde face which can symbolize his hidden idenity. Throughout this entire painting the one thing I didnt get to find out and dont understand what it is, is the dark circle in front of Werner Heyde. I also looked at the original photo and also couldn't make it out.
As I examined both of these great paintings I found alot of similarities between the two. I feel Gerhard Richter did a great job on these paintings and the way he makes paintings co-exist with one another is a great way to examine them, both of which have to do with the Nazi era. What Gerhard Richter did which alot of other painters dont do is paint paintings that have something to do about the painter and the roots of where the painter is from. As Gerhard Richter is from Germany and grew up in the Nazi era what better paintings to combine than Werner Heyde and Adolf Hitler.
I chose two art pieces by the artist of Wangechi Mutu the first painting “backlash” and my second choice was “strength lies”, I chose these two painting because of their many uses of color and many use of colors and their and cut outs.
The first painting I examined was “backlash” the first I noticed was the different colors of ink. The first thing noticed the figure of a women kneeling in some what of a animal like stance looking off into the distance. The eyes of the women are cut outs of to seem like magazines. The ear of the women is also a cut out from a magazine also the lips of the women seem to be a cut out. The most interesting visual about the women face is the fact that her hair is made out of cut outs of motorcycles. Each motorcycle has an individual color, one motorcycle is the color of crimson red and the other are a sort of sky blue. As you begin to examine the painting more intensely the viewer can notice that is mad out of ink drops and the Mutu uses the brush to create this image. The different body parts of the women are different colors. The color of the thigh is gold, the viewer can notice that that it Is painter used ink droplets to create the painting because the painting is not fully filled in. the arms and legs of the women is blood red with swirls from the paint brush to create the shape. As the viewer looks down the painting the viewer notices that women standing in the animal like stance is standing a well created ground made also by different colors of ink. The ground of the painting is dirt brown ink swirled with a paint brush to give it a sense of that it is the ground earth. In the dirt the rocks and the grass are made out blackish purple color which give a sense of odd feeling to it. The whole entire painting gives off a sense that this painting is in another world which makes the painting interesting and appealing to me. In this painting Towards the bottom the color begins to switch to a dark brown to other colors such as dark purple and a light brown. Mutu makes swirls going down the painting to make it seem like it’s the roots of the ground earth. Around the women in the painting the artist puts a darkish color of purple around it which it gives the object it a aura around it which made it appealing to the eye and what can attract many viewers. Also the painting is has drops of blood red ink on it show that this painting is somewhat of animalistic painting. I think Mutu created this painting to show how people of our time the machinery that they use now is beginning to become apart of them and it’s their nature to use it. Mutu makes it seem like she is in the fields of the Africa because of the way she illustrates the grass. It seems like the women seems like a cheetah in Africa awaiting and stalking her unexpecting pray. The rocks she is sitting on also look like skeletons heads of which she has just eaten the meat and threw away the bones.
In the next painting “histology of different classes of uterine cancer” Mutu makes it seem like alien creator which is not from this world because of the features. Maybe this figure is alien because uterine tumors look odd and abnormal. This picture is made from cutouts from seem to be magazines similar to wangchi mutu other works of art. The alien figure has an afro which makes it seem somewhat of human. The colors in this portait don’t really stand out. The background picture of the uterus tumors are in a very light color which don’t make it really stand out. The fact that the uterus picture is in a light color helps it create an alien. The alien seems that do be tribal for some reason. Because of the way the alien looks like. The alien seems to like it has a story behind it. Which could be the reason for the name of the image. Mutu might also created this image to make light of her serious disease. This image could be how Mutu potrays this disease in her head. As the viewer can notice that the image looks like it has been ripped right out of a magazine which gives a sense of tribal feel to it. The monster in the image seems to screaming at the viewer. The face of the alien is the brightest thing in the portrait which the attention to it which strays away the uterine cancers in the picture.
The artist that I choose is Vik Muniz, who is a Brazilian artist, and lives and works in New York City. His artwork are so larruping, whether his art style, his picture, his photograph are so different to other people. So, in those of his artwork, I have chosen three pictures by him. The two different type pictures of his artwork. The first one I have chosen is the “Sisyphus, After Titian” of Pictures of Junk in 2006. The second one is “Montagne Sainte Victoire, seen from Montbriand, after Cezanne” of Picture of Pigment in 2006. I have chosen them; the reason is because three of them are have different technique to make that, also his technique is so special, different to other people.
The first picture I have chosen is called Sisyphus, after Titian. It is used a lot of actual junk to make the picture, he using a lot different kind of junk, he using discarded tires, appliances, furniture, metal, hardware, and a myriad of other objects. He didn’t using that any valuables or wasting any thing to finish his picture. Also, in this picture, you will see the man who has cream-colored and white skin, has dense brown and black whisker, and has elflock hair and wears a short pants. He doesn’t have clothes on him, he just wear a short pants, and he also doesn’t have shoes to wear. In the picture, his face looks like so tired, so hardship, like he thinks he must have to work, if he doesn’t work, then he will not just get ant thing, he will be get trouble, and you will see he is carry some heavy things, so he is face down to the ground, his eyes is looking to the ground, use his backside to carry that he carries. So, I think he is a bearer. Because he walks hardly, because he doesn’t have shoes, and he is carry some heavy things, and his feet are like a person who doesn’t shoes a long time and his feet are dirty, always to work, like have some wounds in there. His hands and arms are having some thing looks like wound in there. So that’s why I think he a worker to convey a lot of thing; I think he is a bearer, to schlep a lot of things. Also, this is what I focus on, my eyes drawn to first to I see the man who is carrying some heavy things in the middle of the picture, there are a lot junk was discarded surround the man, and use junk to make his face, pants, feet, hand, and his whole body, each detail, then to finished the picture to looks like what he think. After the people finish, then he tell some people to help him to take the picture from high place to see what he want to be. I have chosen this picture also because I had never see people use junk to make a picture, so I was so surprise about that, I thought this is very cool and special idea.
Then, the second one I have chosen is called Montagne Sainte Victoire, seen from Montbriand, after Cezanne. This is picture of pigment, is color photography. I will chosen this picture because my first eye to look at this picture, then I love this picture, I feel so comfortable, free, lie fallow, looks like a village place, so good. In this picture, it has a tree in the front of the middle, it doesn’t look like a normal tree, though I don’t know what kind of tree is that, but I know it also has a lot bottle green leafage in there, and brown bole. Then there have about few trees in the front of left side; the picture looks like the center is the tree in the front in the middle. So, Vik Muniz draws the other tree get together in other side. Those trees are also high and have a lot bottle green leafage and brown bole. Then, you will see there have a tight lake in the middle, from the mountain side to the front, then, I see a bridge between the left side to the right side, there also have some house in there, so people can till and work in the field. In the back, there has few mountains and they have different high. I think Vik Muniz is drawing picture approach dusk, the sky has some light blue and light purple combination together. So I see the ground, lake, mountains and house are have some salmon pink, light purple, dark green, light green and light yellow in everywhere, so I think the artist Vik Muniz wants to tell us he is drawing a toward evening picture. It looks very good, and shows what the artist want to show, what he means. The picture let me think of though just a part of the place, but I still can feel comfortable, peace, tranquility and beautiful in the picture.
In these two different types of picture Vik Muniz’s artwork, are so different to each other, one is picture of junk, use large numbers of junk to make a picture, used a lot of people to make that, it is not briefness to do, I think they not just find a mass of junk to make, and they need to find what junk they need, because Vik Muniz cannot just use one kind of junk, only one color of junk, only one size of junk, so they need more time to prepare that, then start to move junk to make a picture, and they need to know where should they put, and what should they put in there. Also, the effect is very good and cool, you can clear to see what Vik Muniz’s artwork, what he want to show in the picture. Then the picture of pigment, Vik Muniz clear know ho to used color skill in the pigment, let the picture looks good, accord what he want to show. I love his drawing way, his color, and his color congruity very great, excellent. That is why I have chosen these two pictures.
Michael Luu
Period 2
04/14/08
English CP
4 Corners
The painting that I chose for my 1000 word essay is the “4 corners” by Francesco Clemente. After looking carefully through the whole painting my theory is that Clemente is a religious figure. The painting consist of numerous colors, the sky is a kind of royal blue. What caught my eye was the pale color of the hand with the an emerald color map, but if you look closely in some parts of the map there is a dark brown color covering over Sudan and the majority of the countries around it. What I thought this might was that it connects to today’s modern world. In My opinion Clemente made these countries a different color for a reason and it’s that these countries are going through some tough times as we speak, with war and poverty and etc. This relates back to my theory on how he’s religious, and might not support the war in these specific countries. This caught my eye because all throughout the painting everything is a bright color, we have royal blue, with navy blue and a white color for the stars, but the colors for the countries are a darkish color. The hand is placed in a body of water, but the hand is only holding up four fingers. The expression of the hand in this painting is calm and at ease. The background where the hand is, there is a royal blue color with 12 plain white stars. But the stars are scattered everywhere throughout the sky. I also found out that there were lines going through the painting, what I thought this might be are the longitude and the latitude like on a map. But this might also mean how the painting is folded. If looked closely in the painting where the hand is, the lines on the hands can mean faith. Last thing that I want to describe the shape and expression of the current is given out to viewers.
Moving on to a different part of the painting is the hand. The hand is another connection towards my theory. This supports my theory because the hand is bursting out of the water. Scientist says today that evolution began in the oceans. So since the hand is coming out of the water this might be a religious piece of work from Francesco Clemente believing the fact that evolution began in water. So this might be the reason why Clemente placed the hand into the water. Another detail that I caught was where the hand is reaching towards. In the sky there are 14 all white stars, what I thought this might be is the hand resembling humans. The hands connect to humans because this might mean that human wants to reach for dreams since stars means dreams. Human reaching for the unreachable or humans are working towards the American Dream. Also that the water might represent Poseidon, the Greek god of sea and water elements and the hand might be the god reaching for the stars as well.
The title of the painting is “4 corners” in my opinion there has to be a reason on why Francesco Clemente named it this. In my theory the 4 corners means the 4 body of water that the world is surrounded by, Arctic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. This also goes back to the hand and how the hand is holding up 4 fingers, this might be the 4 bodies of water that the hand is referring to. What I think the painting is trying to say is that the four body ocean connects everyone in the world together, and that Francesco Clemente wants to set world peace. This also goes back to the fact that Francesco Clemente might be religious since the 4 corners might be the 4 body of oceans or that the four corners can be literally 4 corners from a square and in the middle of the square could be the world and that since its 1 object or 1 space in the square this might mean world peace too. Another point that I wanted to make is on how the map is on the hand and that the hand is in the water. After observing the painting more I thought I this painting might be the totally opposite of reality. In reality when holding a globe the globe is blue since of the body of water and green since of the land and etc. But in the painting it’s the other way around the map is on the water and the water is holding the hand which is the opposite. In the water there are many currents on the ocean, this is going back to the fact that humans reaching for the stars. Since the hand is reaching for the stars the currents in the water might the bumpy road for the humans to seek their dreams.
Last thing that I want to mention is how the hand might be a human drowning in the ocean. This hand might be a soldier at war that has returned to home and is overwhelmed of the fact that he has returned home. This is also can be taken the other direction like when a soldier is at war and that he has died for his country, this also refers back to the fact that in the countries that has the darkish color on his hand is the location of the war is taken place. Another opinion that I have is that this might be a human committing suicide because of the war. This can be a person that is totally against the war in Iraq and everywhere else and has decided to drown him or herself. In conclusion this painting can be taken in different view by many different people. People can think the Francesco Clemente can be a religious painting or they can disagree. But in my opinion Francesco Clemente is a religious painter and that’s what he wants viewers to realize.
The painting I am looking at right now is the "nude descending a staircase" Marcel Duchamp and the reason I have picked this painting is because I like abstract pictures because when you look at them your mind can go wild with imagination and thoughts and it gets your brain going to its full potential also it makes you look at the world in a different perspective as well you start questioning things and that is why I picked this picture and this artist because I will have so much to talk about and I will have so many different ideas of what this picture is some colors that I see are: Antique white, bisque, blanched almond, cornsilk, eggshell, ivory, lemon chiffon, moccasin, navajo white, dim grey and ivory black, those are a some good color descriptions but in one word the colors look like a kind of cream. What I first notice is while looking from a distance that it kind of looks like a robot and there is a kind of face in there which makes me think that it is a person some how but as I look at it closer then I lose sight of the face and it no longer looks like a person at all but now a cluster of maybe junk and lines witch are just there to take up space in the image or maybe all that stuff could have been something like a house and all parts of the house have been thrown all over the place but other than that off the top of my head I have no idea what it could be and those were my thoughts before reading the title. Then after reading the title it gave me an idea of what is could be but I still couldn’t see it but there is at the top right of the picture a set of stairs in the distance or what appears to be that, being an abstract painting it could be anything but what is see are stairs. What this might be is a whole big complex stairway and in there somewhere is a person or the stairs I saw up in the corner is stairs that the person already walked down and this big this that is in the very center of the picture is the person drawn in a very weird way. I also see in the top left corner a kind of hallway maybe and to the right in the middle it look like one of those poles you see at the top and bottom of the stair handles right next to what I think is a fist on the “person” and at the bottom left it looks like more stairs so this whole thing is very weird to me and I can think of nothing else to what it could be.
The second picture I would like to identify is “sad young man in a train” after reading about Marcel Duchamp it says that he had an interest in cubism. This painting consists of the same colors just darker, darker maybe because darkness is a sign of sadness and fear and anger and that is why I think it is darker than the other picture. This is also very interesting because it is what appears to be a face from far away or a cliff side and looking closer unlike the other picture where the face seems to disappear this one you can still see when you zoom in the face can still be seen and behind this figure that looks like a face seems to be the same thing behind it just like a train only it happens to be that the train is this sad man’s face. When looking extremely close at the hole in the “face” where the eye should be on a face there is an actual eye in there like there is someone looking out so it might be a person wearing a mask, a sad mask, even though this eye is small and hard to see and if you were to only take a glance at this picture you would not see the eye, I think it has an even greater meaning than the size of it. What I also see is the bottom of the figure looks like what the old first trains had those steam powered trains back when they were first invented and since this picture was made in the December of 1911 and it is suppose to be a man on a train then it kind of supports my theory of the man’s face being the train because there is part of the front of a human body and there is a part of the front of a train it all fits and those back things the figures behind the face could be the following cars that the train pulls. The face could also be personifying the attitude of the train like it is sad or something but it is said that this painting is suppose to be a self portrait of Marcel so it could also be himself and how he is feeling while he is on a train and I would have never thought of that unless I looked up information on the painting and found out that it is a self portrait. Back to the eye in the hole that hole might be a window on the train and he is looking out in despair.
I have picked these two pictures because they are both one year apart and Marcel drew “sad young man in a train” while exploring ideas for the painting “nude descending a staircase” and they are the ones that first caught my attention at when I I went onto hi site I said to myself that this looks both complex and very simple complex because of the detail that you see when you very close at it and simple because on the cartoon like pictures and looking like cartoons made it easier for me because I have a big imagination and that is what was a big spark for me in saying all these ideas.
David Hockney’s paintings have such brightness in them that it’s hard for your eyes to notice just one thing. But the paintings that I chose each have something special about them. Because the colors that the artist chose to do his canvas with, each has a meaning to them.
The first painting that caught my eye was “The Road to York through Sledmere”. This painting has a lot of bright colors in it. First the house and the fences colors are a reddish orange type of color. Then there’s one house from the far end of the picture that does not look like the other houses, the colors are purple with a grayish blue. The name of the canvas is what got to me the most after the house. Because, it seems like the reason behind the painting was that someone or something was trying to break free from something or someone or somewhere. The painting also has a lot of land in the far, far end of it. And it looks like it just goes on and on without ending. Each land in the far end of the painting is divided by what looks like a light blue barrier. The sky looks like its about to rain. In the front of the painting, there is a house that is painted in pink, dark blue, and crème. The top front of the house had a little orange on it, and it also looks like there are three sets of trees growing out of it at the same time, and right next to the house there’s a telephone pole.
The second paint that caught my attention was “The Garrowby Hill”. This painting has a lot of different shades of blue, green, and bright red. It has dark blue, light blue, sky blue, and baby blue. It also has some orange, turquoise, pink, and salmon, yellow. In the front of the painting, there’s a tree that looks like it got cut off and it was just dropped on the side of the street. And in the tree, it looks like some worms are either trying to break free or eating the tree. I also notice that each tree in the painting has a red trunk and a blue leaves on top of them. And behind the trees in front of the painting, there’s a big mountain of green bush behind it. The sky is gray and white. And at the far end of the painting, all that lands have different colors, shapes, and sizes. Some have two colors while others have colored stripes. In the middle of the painting, there’s an orange piece of land separating four other pieces of land covered in blue trees. The road in the painting is purple, and it goes down the hill in a circular motion divided by a little bit of land down the middle. And it looks like no matter where or how far you start down the road you’ll end up on top of it somehow. But at the same time, there’s a forest on the right side of the painting and it does not look too friendly for anyone to go near it.
The third painting that I like is “The Railing”. I like this painting because it doesn’t have a lot of flashy colors like the first two, but at the same time, it has some nice colors like red which is my favorite color, it has yellow, grass green and tree green, orange, blue, purple, pink, and it also has a little silver in it. What first caught my attention was this wooden thing surrounded by railings looking like it’s been held prisoner for something. And it has these orange things coming out of it. It looks like the line started from the back of the wooden thing, and each and everyone of these things are taking their turn to break free from whatever it is that is keeping them prisoner. The same thing is happening with the tree except the things that are eating it up start from the bottom and they go up inside the tree come out looking grass green, drop on the ground and turn yellow. Behind the tree lies a cemetery painted in red. And it looks like the cemetery is being guarded by shadows. I notice that in the painting, the ground looks deformed. And I think that the reason behind this is because of all the things that are happening in the painting, and the ground can only hold on to so much.
Behind the wooden thing in the painting, there’s this blue shadow with a little bit of white in it. And that looks like an opening for the things that are eating the wood and the tree to break free. And the things that are eating the wood look like cheetos, and the ones coming out of the tree look like pickles because the tree itself has a trunk that looks like celery with a cotton candy top. Behind the railing, there’s a blue fence. And I think that the fence is just one thing protecting the fruity garden, but the railing is protecting the most important part of the garden. Because where else would you find cheetos this big coming out of a wood. I think that the dark colors behind tree represent some kind of evil, and the fence and the railing are trying to prevent it form entering the garden. Another thing that noticed is that the garden looks like it’s on a mountain because of how far the tree is form the fence. Behind the tree, the ground is very dark whit a shade of navy blue with black in the middle. And in the black part, there’s this silver part that looks like it’s trying to take over the darker parts. I think that this represents some sort of light that is bringing peace to the garden after being held prisoner for so long. And on the ground there are four other yellow things that look like bananas that are trying to get to the light so that they can to finally have some peace in their lives, because they’ve been disturbed for so long and fruits tend to get rotten after a certain period of time.
Max Ernst’s paintings are so abstract, the colors, designs, and the objects he has in his paintings are very bold.
The first painting I chose is “L'Ange du foyer ou Le Triomphe du surréalisme” and when I first saw it, it took me by surprise a little. I just found it so odd yet intriguing at the same time that it took me a while to start formulating some ideas about it. There was just so much to take in at once that it felt a bit overwhelming. It also left me really confused and thinking about how I could possibly describe it. It is a painting of what seems to be some sort of bird monster that’s in agony. Its arms are up in the air and it looks like its about to jump. It’s a bit hard to determine its exact body shape because Ernst painted its body like it were drapes or like its diffusing or something. The top of its head is white, but then there are some shades of yellow and green on its neck. It has a beak and its beak is opened. It has two rows of teeth and the inside of its mouth is a brownish orange. It also has yellowy eyes which appear to be closed. The expression on this bird’s face is one of frustration with anger with agony. It’s actually pretty interesting. I also noticed how the colors on its neck aren’t quite blended together but they look like very thin stripes. Then as it goes to its body its almost as though its made out of fire but like I said it looks like drapes. The colors now range from orange to blue. In the left side of its “shoulder” there are shades of a yellow orange and there are some parts that are a bit uneven. It looks like as the wind blows, parts of its body blow with it. Then its left “arm” is a yellowish brown, and it looks like there’s some sort of other beast that’s attached to it. Both of this beasts arms seems to morph out of its arm. This little beast has arms and what seems to be a mouth full of teeth, but it doesn’t have any eyes. Its very strange. Its also a dark olive green with shades and dark brown on its body. There’s also an arm coming out os it and it has a hand. This hand has seven fingers, but the fingers are long and skinny and it looks like it has claws. It looks almost evil. The little beast’s arm is attached to the bird’s leg. The leg is a mixture of lemon yellow and dirt brown. I also noticed some patterns on its leg. The shading makes it seem as though there are some dents on the monster’s leg. I also noticed on the left side of its body there’s some white. The white give a huge contrast against the other colors on its body. It such a pure white and it almost look misplaced, like it shouldn’t be there. Now going to the right side of its body. Its right shoulder is actually beautiful. It looks like there are layers on top of layers of a mash of colors. It starts out a daisy yellow, but then there are stripes and pieces of other colors. White, grass green, light yellow, violet, orange, brown. They’re painted so well that is all almost seems blended. I also like how Ernst started it out light but then went darker and darker. Then its arm is a bright red which morph into an olive green. It looks like there’s a piece of it that’s being torn apart. Its hands are what caught my attention. It looks like it has claws. It also looks like its holding on to something invisible which adds to the expression of some sort of agony he has on. Then going to the right side of its body. The colors don’t seem to blend in as much as they did on the left side of its body and the colors are also a lot more darker. There’s almost a shade of black, but then its thighs are an orange red. Its such a strange painting and its so hard to describe it. Then its calves are a dark sapphire blue. This is the leg that is up, it looks like he’s about to step down with it. Then its foot is a blueish violet and its actually a bit pointy. It also looks like its dripping.
Now the background is what really helps the “bird monster” pop out. Ernst decided to paint the sky behind it. This helps the creature look gigantic and its such a neutral background that it becomes a huge contrast between the mixture of colors and the grayish clouds. It looks like the clouds are forming a storm in the horizon. If you look close enough you can also notice what looks like the peek of a mountain but its very small. In the bottom of the sky its a lot darker. With shades of gray, blue, and some green. All around the bird's body it seems like pretty much the same color, but somewhere in the top it looks like there's an opening. I noticed a tint of baby blue there. The painting as a whole is quite different. I later found out that it's supposed to be a painting of an angel, but for some reason it doesn't look like an angel at all. I guess it looks like a fire angel in a way. After looking through a lot of Ernt's paintings I noticed that a lot of them have a christian theme to them, and this painting definately applies to it.
I really liked this painting, the colors and the designs are really unique and bold.
I chose to do my research paper on the artist named Jerry N. Uelsmann. Uelsmann’s photographs are really eye popping because he puts weird combinations of Humans and nature together too give it an appealing look. Materialistic things or objects verses real life things or objects. It shows a great deal of imagery and really gets u thinking. I like him a lot because Uelsmann’s photographs have many stories to them. The photographs I picked are untitled and tree house. They seemed very appealing to me and they are also really weird. In the photograph named untitled. One of the first things my eyes gaze on is the giant tree right in the middle of the picture. It’s a big tree very big. Looks like it is a very dark like some kind of shadows has taken hold of it. There are lots of leaves on it. The tree is at its highest strength all the leaves are there. Below the tree in the middle of the picture. Is a very complicated maze of roots going downward the tree? The other bad part is that the roots are not touching the ground. Not even is the touching the ground it’s kind of like the tree is flying or is floating from the ground. Under the tree seems to be a piece of land its oval shaped and is right under the tree. In the middle of the land right under the roots of the tree is bright. Kind of like there is a certain light coming from the center of the picture. On the outer parts of the land are like bushes on the perimeter the bushes are black as the surround the peace of land right under the floating tree. Looking at the top of the tree to the bottom of the piece land. Uelsmann gives a sort of pattern in colors. It starts off with darker colors then goes to lighter colors right back to darker colors. Surrounded by the piece of land is water making the land an island in a sort of the way. But Uelsmann makes the tree and the island look like they are both floating. Uelsmann creates an allusion to make both of these pictures look like they are floating. Even more significant is that reflection on the water. The reflection on the water is supposed to be a picture of the floating tree and the island but it is not. Instead of the reflection being a picture of the floating tree and island it is a weird picture. It sort of looks like two pieces of land that were stuck together and are now being ripped apart. Like the inside mouth of a slime monster. Bu in another sense it could be a cave. The water must be transparent and underneath the floating tree and floating island is a cave. To prove that the island is really floating the reflection could be just the bottom of the floating island. The water is dull and shady; it has like a foggy sense of feeling to it. Makes the viewer of the painter feel like its dead. The water could be a pond or a swamp that has been a little purified. In the background of the picture is a mountain range. But from a distance it looks like a mountain range. But looking closely from the picture they are a whole bunch of trees like it is a forest. But the main thing is that the trees are floating from the ground just like the one in the middle of the field. The picture in the middle is the leader and those in the background are following the leader. To the right of the picture is a tree that’s floating but is much higher than the picture in the middle. All the floating trees in the background of the picture seem to be on land while the one in the middle is on an island. In the next picture which i chose that is from Jerry N. Uelsmann it is called tree house. His version of a tree house is weird. It s a symmetrical house that looks abandon. Looks like a haunted a house there are three windows on the top floor of the house and the windows are long type of windows. The house looks like one of the houses that were in the great depression. Like they left the land and moved away from it. At the bottom of the house is a tree stump it is part of the house it is like the house is a tree it self. Just like it is said in the title of the picture. The house seems to have roots that are connected to the ground and go down deep. The house is planted there and will not leave the ground. It has become one with the ground. The house is old like it has been there for ages. No one seems to live in it. Every thing in the house is fallen apart there pieces that are hanging out the window. Just like trees the house is old. Trees have been around way before man kind so the house is being compared to trees also. In the back ground of the picture are other house but they are normal none of them seem to be connected to a tree stump or roots of some sort like that. The sky has a dull feeling to it also and the sun is not out. It is cloudy outside and the house in a mountain side setting like it is in Iceland or something around that type of land setting. Far away in a distance are more houses but they are very small the main focus is the house in the middle of the picture. Those are what the photographs of Jerry N. Uelsmann are like. He connects nature with human things that make them seem unreal and a sort of weird. This is mainly why I picked him to do my research paper on.
Fire angel
The painting I chose to do is “Fireside Angel” by Max Ernst, the reason why I picked this picture is because the painting is very likely to be in your imagination and I find it interesting because it made me feel like Max has an imagination of a little boy and it makes me feel like I can also draw something myself because it looks like he just watched a cartoon show and put cartoon characters together.
In the painting to me it looks like a giant monster that is created with many other small bits of other monsters from cartoon shows. The picture shows that the monster looks something like a human bean it has a head, 2 arms and 2 legs. The left arm looks like its part of a deformed human because of the dark brown furry hands and sharp long nails that looks like a lions hand but with fingers. It also looks like it has some kind of curtain like clothing on and it looks kind of wavy. On the bottom of the left arm it looks like a little small monster trying to stop it from doing something. To me it seems like the monster is angered or something and the dark gray colored little monster on the bottom left is probably a family or a buddy that’s trying to help its big buddy calm down. The small monster is like one of those cartoons where a big monster has a little sidekick by their sides helping them with whatever. On the left side of his head it has some red colored devil kind of look, the red colored jacket is shaped like a devils wing maybe the monster has a good side and a bad side to it. On the left side of the red colored jacket is fully red to me it means its real bad on that side. On the right side of the red jacket it’s starting to change into the color of the head blue, yellow, green, and some orange but its not yet fully changed, so i think that that is the good side of the monster. The head of the monster caught my attention when I first looked at the painting because it got some white on it, and the whole body doesn’t stick out but the head does. The head also looks like one of them Asian dragon heads and it resembles good plus the face has a simple happy face and because the eyes look happy and I guess its where the mind still has control of the body so the head doesn’t look like its bad monster or maybe the head is trying to control the whole entire body from doing what it doesn’t want to do since the head doesn’t look evil. The left leg of the monster looks like it has some kind of horse shoe under the foot maybe it resembles the power of the leg because horses do have strong legs. This part of its body is probably where the monster have its powers or strength because the monster is standing on it so I’m guessing that without that leg the monster would be nothing. The orange colored thing on the bottom of the monster is probably just part of the red on top of the monster. The right arm of the monster has some kind of spiky things coming out I think that the monster is changing into some other kind of beast just growing more parts to the body. There is some red on that arm and at the end of it, it has some green goblin hands kind of look. Long fingers and big hand usually goblins have little bodies and in the imagination world their small like how we see it and their afraid of things, so maybe the right arm represents the little piece of the monster and cant do much with it. Now on the right leg it has some dark blue greenish color and some orangey red on it. The leg looks like its made out of strings because you can see at the knees of the monster is like them balls that hang at the end of the fancy curtains. The knee down it looks like crab legs because the foot looks like it has some spikes on it. Now after I looked at the picture and examined it the left side of the monster is big and the right side of the monster is small. So I think that the monster has a split personality. 1 side is he is a tough monster inside and its ready to like go destroy a city or whatever is bad in your imagination. The other is a small side and is afraid of things and it’s trying to stop itself from doing the total opposite and doesn’t want to destroy a city or whatever. The middle of the body is just mixed with good and bad, like a Yin-Yang, basically it still doesn’t know if the mind of the monster wants to do bad or do good, its like a show good monster or bad monster. Now in the background of painting theirs mountains in the range but looks small so maybe its either far away or the monster is just really humungous. The sky is getting cloudy so maybe something bad is going to happen and maybe the monster is changing into a bad monster because the sky shows the emotion of the monster. Or it could be the other way around the clouds could be clearing out and the monster is going from a bad monster to a good one. So after writing all of this I think that Max Ernst is a nice artist because all his paintings are like animals, monsters, or weird creatures put together and he makes the paintings interesting and worth the time to look at, its like your looking inside of a little kids head and thoughts.
Norman Rockwell is one of the most famous American artists. He was born on February 3, 1894 in New York City. He was not raised in the richest household. His parents were religious, and young Rockwell was active in the church. At a young age, he showed an interest in art, and in his sophomore year of high school he dropped out and went full time to art school. He started with the National Academy School and soon after enrolled in the Art Students League. He soon earned the nickname “The deacon” since he was so serious with his art work. His teachers George Bridgeman and Thomas Fogarty were a great inspiration in his life and in his art. Bridgeman helped him with his drawing skills and Fogarty with his illustrations. Fogarty later helped him gain an illustration job in children’s books. Years later in March 1916, Rockwell was hired as the illustrator of the Saturday Evening Post cover.
When Rockwell learned this he was ecstatic. He always wanted to do the Post cover. Once he started there, many other magazines wanted his paintings. That year he married Irene O’Connor, she was a school teacher. Even though he was happy with his marriage he never stopped working on his art, but in 1917 he did. Rockwell decided to join the navy during World War I. Though, he was there he did not do any real work. He was camp newspaper, and he continued to work for the post overseas. In 1929 he divorced his wife Irene, and married to Mary Barstow. Years past and they had three sons. The family moved to a farm in Arlington, Vermont in 1939. In 1941, Rockwell learned the Milwaukee Art Institute would give him his first exhibition in a museum.
In 1941, Rockwell received great inspiration from President Roosevelt on the “four essential human freedoms.” Rockwell created the four freedoms paintings which were Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Want, and Freedom of Fear. The paintings were published in the Post in 1943. They received a lot of attention from the American people.
In 1943, Rockwell’s studio was burned down. He lost drawings, paintings, props, and costumes. Even though this happened it did not stop him from working. Rockwell started to bring in some more income. He created stamps for the Postal service, mail-catalogs for Sears, and greeting cards for Hallmark. In 1953, Rockwell decided to move to Stockbridge, Massachusetts with his family. Sadly six years later his wife Mary died of a heart attack. Rockwell was remarried once more to Molly Punderson, a retired school teacher. In this same year, Rockwell received and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts and the Interfaith Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, for his Post cover painting of the Golden Rule. In December of 1963, Rockwell issued his last Post cover. During 1961-1963, a painting Rockwell issued for the Post in January 13, 1962 is quite interesting.
In the issue of the Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell seems to be making fun of another painter. His name was Jackson Pollock.
Jackson Pollock was an abstract painter. He began painting by dripping and pouring in 1947. Pollock was the first American abstract painter that Europeansloved. Painting ran in his family, his oldest brother, Charles, went to New York to study the painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Later, he met so many important people in the art world including Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siquieros.
Later that year he was in an exhibiton, where he met his future wife Lee Krasner. There he met his future dealer and patron the New York heiress Peggy Guggenheim. In 1943, Guggenheim gave Pollock a solo exhibition and a contract. He then moved to East Hampton, Long Island with his wife. Pollock was known all over New York but nowhere else. In August 1949, Life magazines did a piece on the famous American abstract painter; he is known to change the status quo. He began to use black and white paint only in his paintings. Pollock had a drinking problem which caused his marriage to take a fall. He began to have an affair and his wife went to Europe to take some time off. During that time Pollock died in a car crash after consuming too much alcohol.
Pollock and Rockwell are two different people with two different painting styles. Pollock is an abstract painter and Rockwell is a realistic painter. Yet they both were famous during the 1940s and 1950s. Their times clashed, Pollock was famous in exhibitions and Rockwell in the Saturday Evening Post. In the issue of January 13, 1962, Rockwell pokes fun of Pollock’s paintings.
In this picture there is a man in his fifties or sixties being absorbed by this colorful painting. He is overwhelmed as his hat is off. He is standing up straight trying to receive all the aspects of the painting. He is wearing a nice, clean suit indicating he is a business man. He is holding what seems to be a book or a pamphlet and an umbrella. Yet all his attention is on this vibrant and vast painting. He is the only person looking at the painting.
The painting has blotches and lines of colorful paint, and overlapping each other. The painting is very tall and wide. On the top of the painting it says “The little known world of our Negro aristocracy.” The cover can be showing the confused Caucasian with the crazy young radical colored people as the painting. So Rockwell can be applauding Pollock for his work instead of making fun of it as a lot of people say.
Altogether Pollock and Rockwell were two great and influential painters. They were no Picasso or Monet but they still brought something new and different to the table. They were famous in their era and they are still famous in ours.
The painting i choose to do has no name, and isn't a painting. Its a picture made by Jerry Uelsmann. I choose to work on him because i found his method of art interesting. The picture that i wrote on here i choose because i feel there is alot of meaning behind it and i would like to know what it is.
The first thing that grabs my attention is I notice that there is a women standing in the center of the picture. She is a white women but her body has a dark gray shade casted over her only and she is standing there naked and her body looks to be tensed up. Her hair is medium length. It goes down to her low neck and is dark gray color. Her face is looking toward the right as to be looking at something and you can see her small gray pointed nose. Her right arm hangs down against her body and her hand is open. You cant see her feet because she is standing in an open field. Not a field of grass but a field of clouds. The clouds resemble the ground that she walks on. They cover from the left to the right of the painting and also from the front to the back. The array of cloud colors are white, gray and dark gray. They do look like clouds because some parts over laps others parts mixing the colors giving them a realistic look. As you look more toward the middle of the painting you see these three big lengthy bushes the lay in front of a house. One bush is to the left of the door and is covering a little part two windows and each branch of the bush descend toward the ground. To the right of the door is to two bushes that lay against the house. One bush is long and tall and covers a little bit of a window while the other bush is shorter and thicker and does not cover a window. Also there are no clouds underneath any of the bushes. The tress as well, Nothing growing from the earth has clouds under it. The door that lies in the center of the house is a big door with a small roof the hangs over it and has two big columns that descend from the roof and plug into the stairs, which there are only two. Above the door are 6 tiny windows. The door itself is dark but if you look close enough you can see this whiter color on the door, almost spirit-es looking. Right above the door is another window, this window has eighteen little square windows in it, each little square is as dark as night. To the left of this window are two windows perfectly spaced from one another. These windows have twenty little square windows that are as dark as night. And to the right of the centered window are two windows perfectly space and identical to the windows to the left. To the left of the house, the side, there is another bush, this one is like the three the are in front of the house only this bush is darker and farther away in vision. To the left of this bush you can see five trees all of which are fully grown and there branches are all crossing each other. There are leaves on the trees but there scattered through out the trees. There are less leaves then there are more. Gives an autom feeling. Behind the trees in the distance looks like more bushes or tops of trees. It has a forestry look toward it. all the bushes are molded into one long gray bush. To the right of the house you can see more of the bush that grows along off in the distance. you can see patches of white here and there to resemble opens where the leaves arnt touching. There is one big tree behind the house. You can not see the base of the tree but just the branches the stick out above the roof. This tree like the others does not have much leaves, but does in fact have more leaves than the other five off to the left. Next to the tree branches above the centered window and door on the roof there is this white thing sticking up. It could be the attic or a school bell, or the cross for a church or a child home. This hole image of this picture is inside the palms of two hands. The hands are set up like, if you had both hands out in front of you with you palms faced toward the sky, both pinkies and hand touching one another and making a bowl shape. The left thumb pressed firmly against the hand while the right thumb is more relaxed and not touching the hand. Both index fingers, ring fingers and middle fingers are curved to help make the bowl shape that is holding this image. The pinkie fingers are crossing one another, locking the hand together. The right thumb is almost real because you can see the little curves that the inside of a bent thumb has. This happens again in the right middle and index finger. You can see the wrinkles of the middle part and bottom park of both fingers. The palms of the hands up into the thumbs are the clouds this women is standing on. From the bottoms of the fingers to the tip of the fingers is the rest. Out side these ghost like hands and the spirit like word is darkness. Black, all around the hands. There are two hardly noticeable white marks in the darkness. One to the left of the left nail, and the other is to the right underneath the right thumbs knuckle. The hands are big and look fully grown like there the hands of an adult. The part of the hand where both thumbs connect to the wrist, there are these thin white stringy looking things that are stretching out into the darkness of the picture but are looping back into the witness of the clouds. The house itself looks worn out. The house itself is a gray white color with some of its siding coming off. The roof a dark gray also with some peeling. The sky is an extremely bright white.
The artist that I choose is Wangechi Mutu who born in Kenyan and a Full of productivity or vitality; exuberantly creative. Mutu’s figures are equally repulsive and attractive. From corruption and violence, Mutu creates a glamorous beauty. I choose to look at three artworks: The first painting (2003) and second one (2004) is untitled, the last one is “Backlash Blue ” (2004). These paintings also carries out women’s sexy.
The first painting I have chosen is Untitled, This painting is kind like to satirize about woman. In the painting, the woman treats as the queen, and with some butterflies and the fairies around her. These fairies seem like to help her to put on the clothes and spray perfume. The blood can describe as the perfume. And also the butterflies are flutter around her. But she doesn’t have the beauty feature, however she has good stature. And the colors of her skin are so ugly. And the color of her upper part of body and lower part of body is difference. The lower part of the body the Wangechi Mutu uses comfortless color to fill up kinds like burning. That is just kind like the legs are rotten and not perfection. Also the upper and lower part of the body has difference direction. However the woman has a thick lip and with sepia color, has big eyes with long and curve eyelash, and with very short light grey skirt that makes the woman looks sexy. That body falls into rancidness in lower half part of the body, however there have two parts of the body that fall into rancidness in the upper part of the body. Just like to fit the each other. In the left side of the body, the fairy is rotten with the upper part of body, her legs are upwards and with a white high heel shoes. The white high heel shoes represent pure and splendid. But in the other way round, in the right corner of the body, another fairy also with the upper part of the body rancidness, her legs are downwards with a pair black high heel shoes. The black color shows women sexy and mystery. The color of her lower part of body is like dark ink, however from the color of her skin that she might be a black.
The second painting is Untitled too. It is a painting that in the chips of enchantment but as well as quite obscene nudie foldout. She's enjoying something or that might be sexuality.
Wangechi Mutu uses exaggerated curve to paint the woman's body. That exhibits the woman's sex appeal in the nude in the painting. Moreover she is wearing the silk stocking with Gallus that shows the woman's bicrural chubbiness that shows the woman's big and fleshy and black high-heel shoes these even more show woman's sex appeal. Because her poise just like as woman sex. That might represent the woman thirst for sex. She is comprised of motorcycle parts and a machine built for speed and sexy. Some part of the motorcycle represent ardor, just as she is making good time or drive a flier that kind of delight. As well as that also represent the climax of sexuality and motorcycle's high speed shows its excitement. In the painting we can see a butterfly pierce through the woman's body, but her face doesn't shows she is painful but kind the like enjoy something. While the butterfly pierce through the woman's body the blood is spill out and the woman is kind like large charge. And something comes from the woman's brain that with white and red colors as though the tube in the brain. And the red color just as blood and the white tube might be the blood vessel because of the crack out the blood vessel becomes white and the beginning and end of it has some blood. High heel shoes is pure black, and black represent the felling of female's mystery and sex. As well as the shoes is with high heel that even more emphasize the woman's sex. Then with the short and gold hair that shows the woman's beauty and perfectly incarnate zealous womanliness. The woman's big and black eyeball and that with blood of eye socket look like the woman is impersonate an innocent person but also look like the she is thirst for something. The lip is thick and with brownish red rouge as well as to be inviting or attractive and nor lose the sexy. From the color of the skin, I think the woman is a black people. Her expression and blood around her shows that she is enjoying the large charge. And her poise seem like someone hold her with the arm.
The last painting I choose is Wangechi Mutu’s Backlash Blue conveys an otherworldly quality. It’s painted on Mylar. Mutu’s image poses as a composite of gesture; and exaggerated flourish of fashion illustration. Mutu’s wild figure exudes an apocalyptic glamour.
In the painting, the bald-faced woman squat on the deformed grassplot, because of the grassplot is mess up and with the dark grass, the grass just as grow up from the earth come out with the tremendous germ. The woman is on tiptoe that she might fear to step on the deformed ground. She also is turning her noblest head rearwards. She is noblest because of the exaggerated headwear with diversiform and also the earring, which they are the parts of the motorcycle. That might represent that she is in hurry to see if someone is there can save her to get out from this dirty and deformed grassplot. There are some red things just as the blood around the woman; the red things might represent the dangerous sign. That indicates there is dangerous. There gives out some strange and that fantastic rays of light in her thigh. The rays of the light are diversiform colors but therein the most obvious is color with yellow. That might show her valuable. Underground deposit seems like the debris or offal, which is so disgust and messy. Her innocent expression in the eyes shows that she is abandoned by someone to this wilderness. But also with the thick lip that doesn't lose her sexy expression.
The three paintings connect to each other and they also have the similar parts. The first painting and second one, they both clearly show women’s sexy. However the second and third painting created the women with machine built by using motorcycle as the parts of body. The artist painted the paintings with unusual and seldom seen and fantastic. Others might think the paintings are horrible with their first sign to see the paintings. To view them carefully you might find out that these paintings carried out women’s sexy.
Philip Guston paints The Line, and for the first time looking at it, the first part of the painting that attracted my eyes was the clouds. The clouds did not cover the entire top of the painting but instead it is center closer to the left. The clouds are as though a child has painted it and then mesh. What a child would paint when said the word cloud are these puffy, round white shapes in the top of a page or canvas. The coloring of the clouds makes it so the audience thinks about rain clouds. The outer clouds, which are the bigger ones, are white and almost transparent. As the eyes move towards the center, the clouds becomes a darker grey and smaller. They represent more of smoke then clouds. At the center before the hole in the clouds, the color is white with lines of grey. The clouds when looking as a whole looks very much like the brain. The fact they it looks like a storm cloud could mean brainstorm.
Sticking out of the center of the cloud is a hole where the hand goes through. The hole is black while the hand is red. The hand casts a shadow slightly to the right behind it but is larger then the hand that is also black. The artist is using light coming from the left side. The fact that the hand has shadows, compared to the clouds, it stands out more. Looking exactly where the hand comes out, it looks a part of the picture because it is behind the clouds. Continuing down the hands, the rest of the clouds go back to being 2-D and just the hand sticks out. Above the wrist where the hand is in front of the cloud, the painter does not paint the hand dark enough. The cloud that is there before the hand is still visible. The dark line that forms the clouds against the newly painted hand seems like the scars on the hand. A particular one directly above the wrist makes it looks as though the hand would fall off.
The hand is painted red. The long bumps coming from the hand seems to be veins. The hand is skinny and the bone sticks out at the wrist. It must belong to someone who is worn and old, someone who has work all his life, from childhood until old. The veins start from a straight origin then as it moves onto the back of the palm, it tangles up and very little shows up in the fingers. Above the pinky, a dark line is not part of the shadow. The mark could be a cut or scar on the hand.
The fingers are the lightest in hue compared to the rest of the hand. The entire hand looks as if it is from darkest to lightest red as it moves from top to bottom. The knuckles on the fingers are not noticeable; none of the three knuckles on each finger is present. The skin on the fingers is as wrinkled as the entire hand and shows the age of the hand and the hardship it goes through. The hand is using three fingers to paint the line, the index, middle, and thumb. The index and middle are stretched out hiding behind it the thumb. The thumb is the main finger but it is hidden, probably meaning that the things, which are being done, are not credited to the right person or objecting doing all the work. The other two fingers, the ring and pinky, are both bent at the second knuckle. Both look as if it is missing or hidden. Referring to the thumb, the two fingers see the truth but hide from the truth or fear the truth. The finger nails on the index and middle fingers are both short, lower then the tip of the finger.
View the painting partly and end where the fingers are bent, the hands looks very primitive and if not looks like it belongs to an ape or monkey. To a human, the hand at that point looks like the foot of a person. If the wrist is not seen, I would not be able to tell the difference between a foot and a hand. Again, even though the painting has no horizon, the hand sticks out of the picture to an almost 3-D view.
At the bottom of the painting, there is a red/ maroon base. The base is not drawn in a straight line but with a slight slant. From left to right, it goes upwards. On the red base is a thick black line drawn by the hand of the painting. The line ends two third ways from right to left and slants the opposite of the red base. The line is also thinner as it moves inwards. At the end of the line, it is attached to a black art material, most likely oil, what the painter used to paint the entire piece. Returning to the comment of the shadow and the light direction that the artist uses, the light comes from the left side. The line is placed on the right and goes cross to the end of the painting. In theory, the line could just be the shadow cast by the object the fingers are holding and also of the fingers. All of the shadowing and lighting of the piece falls into the line being just a shadow and not a painted line.
The illusion of the line not being a real line and the hand on the canvas on a canvas that has not painted anything could mean that the old hand, through aging and time, working hard, ends up at a point and everything the hand works for is nothing but the illusion of that line. The head of the hands in the clouds could mean having one’s head in the clouds and thinking but everything thought of is only in thoughts.
Sandy Skoglund’s art is interesting. Her art is in the form of photographs but they’re not normal. She takes pictures of one object but many of them. The colors she chooses make the photo even more interesting. After seeing her photos some may wonder, what was she thinking when she took these pictures?
Take her photo titled Accessories (1979) for instance. Picture standing in a corner looking at a room with cream-colored walls and a white floor. From the right to the left corner hangs a clothes line with an off white collared shirt hanging from it. To the left of the shirt is a woman on a white phone. She is wearing brick red stockings with matching red heels. She is wearing an ivory based dress with plum, fuchsia, and indigo stripes. She is wearing a green and golden yellow striped jacket over it. Next to her is a white dresser with rolls of toilet paper, foam cups, and a broom next to it. Behind the woman is a pile of white clothes. In the right corner is a white chair with a white purse that is decorated with white beads, underneath it. Diagonal from the lady is another dresser two rolls of toilet paper, a spool of white thread, and a white daisy with a white center inside of a white vase on top of it. On the floor and walls of the room are square and round plates. They are placed randomly but do not cover the floor and walls completely. The round plates have a thick forest green stripe, a thin snow white stripe, a thick navy blue stripe, a thin dandelion yellow stripe, and a thick red stripe. The square plates use the same colors but with the yellow first, a very thin white stripe next, a thicker blue stripe, another yellow stripe, but thin, a thicker red stripe, another thin white stripe, and finally a green stripe.
A photograph of this room is very random. Sandy might have decorated a room like so and taken a picture of it because it is something that isn’t seen everyday. She titled the photo “Accessories” and the only accessory in the photo is the white purse. Everything else is white except for the lady’s striped clothing and the striped plates so maybe the purse isn’t the real accessory. Accessories are meant to stand out and that’s what the lady and the plates do. By making other objects appear as accessories Sandy was able to make her photo more appealing. The accessories to her white-washed room make her art creative and fun to its viewer.
The photograph also seems very busy. Though the room is white, which makes it seem tranquil, the many items and the striped plates make it seem like a lot is going on. It seems like the photo may also be about women. The photo is titled Accessories, there is a woman in the photo, there is a pile of clothes, a purse, toilet paper, a spool of thread, cups, and many other things in this photo. Sandy could be showing what many people think of women. They think they always wear accessories hence the title and the purse. They do house work such as laundry and bathroom cleaning which may be why the pile of clothes and the rolls of toilet paper are there. The spool of thread may signify that many women were seen as sewing all of the time. The cups may signify the kitchen work that women constantly did.
Another photograph of Sandy’s is one titled Maybe Babies (1983) uses interesting colors but the same feeling isn’t felt when viewing it. In “Maybe Babies” there are many babies placed randomly in what appears to be a backyard. They aren’t normal babies as some are fuchsia; some are lavender, and others are both colors. Some are walking, some are on all fours, and some are lying on their backs. They are placed everywhere and even on the “walls” of the photo and even crawling on a house that appears in the photo. The backyard is very gloomy as the ground looks like dark and dangerous waters. The ground is a mix of dark colors such as charcoal, dark olive green, and violet. Growing from the ground are lime green vines. The vines aren’t solid; they look like connected dots. The “walls” of this backyard are a mix of dark olive green, charcoal, and royal blue. The house in the photo is grey with a tint of brown. In the window of the house stands a white male wearing a black shirt. He appears to not have a face and he has his arm raised as if he might be pulling down a shade.
This photograph is weirder than “Accessories”. It looks like she took a picture of many babies, painted them different colors, and scanned the photo onto a picture of a house and painted the backyard. Making the babies colored differently and in different positions makes a viewer question if these are really babies. This may be the reason behind the photo’s title. The babies seem to take over the house, or take over the whole photo and this connects to “Accessories” as the plates do the same to that photo. It also connects to the photo in the sense that babies come from women who were also seen as always taking care of children. Making the babies take over the house shows them being in control and answers the viewer’s question, which is that these aren’t babies, at least not for long. These babies will eventually grow up to become adults and take over businesses, law firms, or what ever profession they plan on pursuing. These babies will control things once they grow up. The man in the window may be shown as closing the shades to show that one day he will be out of the picture because the babies will have grown up and taken over.
The photograph “Maybe Babies” also shows Sandy’s creativity. It seems as if she stopped time by taking the photo. Some of the babies are shown in mid-step, mid-crawl, or mid-cry. It’s as if Sandy wanted to stop time so that the babies wouldn’t grow up and become successful in their futures. She may be sad about their growing up which is why she used dark colors in this photograph.
After viewing some of Sandy’s artwork, maybe she is thinking of the importance things that seem unimportant. Women sometimes are taken advantage of and accessories are also. Women are used more than for housework and accessories are important because they help things to stand out. Sandy sees the big picture which may be why she takes photos of these objects.
The picture I have chosen to describe was painted by Alice Neel and is called The Family. The painting is a portrait of two girls. When I first looked at the painting my attention was immediately drawn to the girls faces. These two girls are not smiling but instead looked bored and upset. One girl is older than the other and taller. They both have long wavy dark brown almost black hair. Their eyes don't have color but instead are just black circles. Their noses are big while their mouths are small and straight showing no emotion. These girls look like twins but you can tell their is an age difference so we conclude that they are sisters. The girls are both wearing hats. The younger sister who is on the left is wearing a red hat while the older sister on the right is wearing a black hat. The younger sister is also resting her head on her hand which is another sign that she is bored and does not want to be there getting her picture painted. Both sisters are wearing matching jackets. The jackets are green with brownish spots on them. They are long sleeved and the cuffs are black and so are the necklines. The cuffs and the necklines seem to be fur. On the sleeves of the jackets their seems to be buttons right next to the cuffs. The older sister on the right is wearing what seems to be a pink shirt or bow beneath her jacket. The younger sister is either wearing a black shirt underneath or it is just part of the jacket. Both girls are wearing long black pants. The girls are sitting down on a chair which is big enough to fit both of them comfortably. It looks like an old fashioned chair because the arms are carved out of wood. After looking at the girls my attention was drawn to the back of the painting behind them where their is a doorway. In the doorway their is a woman standing their and she is pregnant. The woman is standing with her back facing towards us so we cannot see her face but she has shoulder length black hair and is wearing a tight long pink dress with a green sweater. She is also wearing brown backless shoes. The girls is the picture are also wearing brown shoes and their pants are tight ate the bottom circling their ankles. Next to the girls on the right is something I'm not sure what it is. It is right next to the wall and may be coats or blankets. It also may be a crib with a baby in it. Their are blankets and what looks like a white dress and a baby's head with black hair. The bottom of the painting their is a rug that is a red pink color and has a flower pattern on the edges. Some areas of the painting are hard to tell what they are because Neel paints a lot of the things in her paintings in a distorted way so it is hard to make stuff out. I think this is one of her techniques she uses on her paintings to show people that nothing is perfect and their is usually more to stuff than the eye can see.
When looking at Larry Rivers artwork called “The Golden Oldies 60’s,” it is nearly impossible to ignore what appears to be a eighteenth century American soldier so it would be during the Revolutionary War, who is positioned in a napoleon-like demeanor with one of his hand tucked into his shirt as if he was going to reach out for a pistol. This soldier is dressed in a faded bluish grey over-coat with a few scarlet red detailing located on his cuffs, midsection of his shirt, and the lower area of his coat. The soldier’s facial expression seems a bit unusual because he appears to be calm as though he is posing for a picture but behind him are what appear to be apparitions of his inner emotions. and also in the left hand corner there’s a feet also look like someone laying down. The first spirit-like figure appears to be agitated and his face has a dark shadowy appearance to it. Behind it, there is a second shadowy figure which is more faintly drawn and appears to be hiding behind the first spirit-like figure.
Although this art work is filled with a collage of what appears to be cut outs of different eras in American history, the second thing that catches ones eye is the candy-apple red confederate flag and current United States flag which is divided by what appears to be a faded long-sleeved shirt that is probably an army uniform. The United States flag shows only twenty stars which vary in shades of white and blue. The left corner of the flag has a deep blue color to it were as for the center of the flag, the deep blue coloring fades and in some areas there are pale blue and white coloring. This fading of blue on the flag gives it a vintage look. But in contrast to the blue and white portion of the United States flag, the stripes are colored in a dark blood shade of red. Lying below the flags is faintly drawn person who lying down with one hand on their stomach and the other positioned on the side of their body. The hand that is position in side of the person’s body is stained with red which gives it an appearance of blood or injury. Due to the faintly sketched drawing, one has difficult time distinguishing whether the person is a women or a man.
The next detail of the artwork that pulls observers in is postcard-like format of men, probably four or five of them, who are dressed like early settlers during the time period between the pilgrims and the Salem witch trials. Above the black and white sketch of the men are darkly shaded in dark red and deep sapphire and also has lettering shaded in blue. The lettering on is written poorly and faintly, making it difficult to distinguish what it says. In the red shaded area, one can barely see the letters “D,” “L,” and “H.” in the shaded blue area, the only letter that can he identified is an “R.” The fading of the letters creates a sense of mystery because it doesn’t clearly identify who or what the men are doing in the picture.
Another unique thing about this artwork is that it has pictures of camels which seems to be placed randomely with in the artwork. There are about four clearly drawn camels on the Larry River’s art work and about four camels that are faintly of scribbled out. The lower middle portion of the artwork that depicts the camels is colored in brown, off white, light-yellow, and reddish brown. The shading which is in light yellow and off white gives that area an effect of light or focus on that area. Because of this, the camels seems to draws the observers attention more than the camels that are located in the upper left corner of the artwork which is shade in a darker shade. The camels located lacks dimension and seems hallow. It also looks like a cigarette packaging of the brand Camels cigarettes. Besides that camel is a scribbled out picture of another camel. This picture of the camel is marked up with reddish, brown scribbles which give the observer the impression that the artist made an error on that particular camel.
On the top left of the art work, the camels look more realistic because it looks more three dimensional due to the shading of brown and black the artist uses to indicate that movement of the camel. Randomly placed on the side of those camels is a sketch of a man wearing what appears to be a cowboy hat. This sketch of this man is in black and white and gives the observer of the artwork a sense of the Wild West when looking at this man.
Placed throughout the art work are items that one might find in one’s home like furniture, grandfather clock, and money. But the most significant item in the painting is the fence in the lower corner of the painting. The fence symbolizes the American dream. Having a family, a career, and a house with a white picket fence are the hallmarks of the American dream. The fence is shaded in an off white color. Towards the left side of the fence, it is shaded in light brown. The way the artist colored and drew the fence gives it an old and authentic look to it.
All of the components of the painting depict aspects of American history in a collage of significant moments that reflect our culture. At first glance, one might think this piece of art is mainly about soldiers of war but by looking carefully at the various details, one can see that this painting provides so much detail that leads that observer to interpret it differently each time they examine it. The contrast in colors and drawing techniques gives this piece of art a unique quality to it that observers have to continuous examine in order to appreciate that artist’s art work.
The artist that I have chosen is Gerhard Richter. Most of his works are photo-based paintings, and among these I found out that he paints a lot of women, too. Although he can paint like a photograph, sometimes he blurs out the face and the surroundings. The three paintings that I chose are Sleeper (Barbara N.), Betty (1988) and Lesende (1994).
The first picture is a portrait of a child, a girl, named Betty. The painting was painted in 1988, and there was some other paintings of Betty painted in 1977. By checking out Richter’s biography I knew that she is her daughter. When I first look into the painting I saw Betty’s hoodie. It is a white hoodie with Indian red flower print all over the sweater and the inner part of the hat is also Indian red. And inside the hoodie is a shirt with the color like salmon. In the painting Betty turned her head to her back as if someone had just tap her shoulder and she turned to see who it is. Betty’s hair is brown with some goldenrod dark in color and they are . Betty’s skin is in eggshell color and because she is turning her head all I could see is her neck, her cheek and one ear. The background is just plain black in color with some white at the bottom, it looks like Betty is sitting on something, I think she is sitting because the clothes around her waist are folded up the most which looked like she is kneeling on something or sitting, at least not standing. From the white part on Betty’s hair I can see that the light come from her right. It looks like that Richter captured the moment that Betty turned around and he painted it like a photograph, as if the next moment Betty is going to turn to me and smile.
The second picture is Sleeper (Barbara N.) which is painted in 1970. When I first look into picture I see the close-up shot of a woman’s face, her eyes closed, so she is sleeping. All I can see about the woman is her face and her hair so I cannot identify her pose, part of her neck is hidden by the pillow, and perhaps she is hugging it while she is sleeping. The woman, or Barbara, has black straight hair which now looks messy. I can tell that she is a beautiful lady by just looking at a side of her face. Her skin is cornsilk in color and she has thin lips. She is wearing a pair of earrings but I can see that there are more ear holes on her ear. The earring is silver in color and it looks like a round little bell. The light comes from the left which Barbara is facing. Barbara has long hair because some of her hair some out from the bottom of her chin. Besides Barbara I can only see some white and brown which are blurred out, probably because Richter only wants to focus on the face. The white might be the wall, the pillow and the bed, so the brown would be some kind of wood of the bed. The painting is painted to be realistic as a photograph. The texture of the hair and the usage of color makes the person in the painting comes alive. Every single part in the painting was painted in detail and even to the most delicate part. The most amazing thing is the size of this painting is only 39cm x 38cm, different from other paintings Richter did which has the size large as 72cm x 102cm
The third painting is my favorite. It is called Lesende, painted in 1994. When I first look into the picture I saw a lady reading some kind of paper like a newspaper. Lesende is probably her name, since Ritcher usually uses his models’ name to name his painting. Same as the other two paintings, Lesende is painted like a photograph. Ritcher painted her by her side, with strong lights coming from Lensende’s back which may be either sunshine or spotlights. Lensende has blonde hair but the end of her hair is in dark brown, I assumed this is because of the light but I figured out the source of the light is from her back so that cannot be, she might have dyed her hair dark brown and the new hair grows back to be blonde. She tied up her hair in a little pony tail with a black hair band. Lesende has a small mouth with thin lips, her nose is not too tall, and her eyes are concentrating on the newspaper in her hands. She wears a blouse in Van dyke brown, and she is wearing a golden earring in ring shape, she also has a golden necklace on her neck. The background is blurred with something like a door on the left, which looks like a room. The walls are in the color of burnt umber and the color goes darker by the door. After doing some search on the picture because I am curious of those people in Ritcher’s painting I found out that Lesende was Ritcher’s wife and this is based on a photograph taken by Richter, when Lensende stood reading a magazine in the kitchen. Every part is painted in detail, I can even see some hair stood up which are too short to be tied up, and the hair by her neck which are also too short, too.
The connection between these three paintings are they are all women and one girl, and Ritcher did not paint their whole face but their back and side. He blurred out the background of the paintings and focused on the portrait of the person in the painting. He painted them in a realistic way. At first when Ritcher paints he paints blurred paintings which are “closed to realistic but also contains a nostalgic distance”, but he also paints excellently in these realistic paintings. These three ladies are somewhat related to Ritcher. Betty is his daughter, Lesende was his wife, but Barbara N. is unknown.
The painting I chose really doesn’t have a name, but link does say trilogy. What you first notice on the painting is an atmospheric section of colors. All the art in the sections tend to stay in that color scheme. We see a dark rusty section on the bottom. We move up to a reddish scarlet section on the left. To the right we have a purple section. Above we have a yellowish section on the left and a green center section. To the top of the painting we have a brownish scarlet section to the left and really light beige almost a white section on the right side. The outside of the painting surrounding this picture has a few minor details. At the bottom of the picture we see a black line at an angle. The line seems to a perfect line as if it were drawn using a utensil. At the right side of the line where it slants down we see a few white scratches on the line. They look like a vague signature, but basically we see about 10 vague white lines. Towards the left of the line we see a bean shaped smudge of paint. The color of this shape is black and has some foggy paint splash towards the left with 2 lines on top of the bean connecting to the main painting. We also see a black dot on the bottom left just above the beginning of the line. The line also starts at the right of the main painting and ends just short of the end of the left side. The line is also terribly interrupted by a large green black smudge in the middle of the line and painting. The smudge connects the line and painting. The smudge has an inner dark black color and the out side is brushed more lightly with a dark green. The black smudge seems to look like a star with 6 tips sticking out of it. From the line to the painting we see that the painting looks square at each side. From the bottom up we see a textured brown water area. Towards the right of the big smudge me come across our first main detail. A baby. The baby looks to be floating in water with his legs, right arm and head over the water. The rest of his body is under water which can be seen. The baby’s eyes seem to be looking at a 30 degree angle up to the picture from a horizontal line. And also the babies arm is scratching his head. Also the baby’s right foot is also in the water. Towards the left of the painting we see another child but this one looks older and looks like he is swimming. We see half his lower body submerged in the water with his right hand up trying to grab a ladies dress. The left hand is submerged in water and we notice from this child his hair is a little bit longer, past his shoulders. The Childs bottom half is as visible as the baby on the right. The boat it self is as wide as the painting. All the elements in the rest of the picture are some how floating on this boat. Above these two we see a boat, looks like a boat from the city Venice. And on top we see a lady sitting down and 2 children standing up. This picture how ever falls from the brown section into the split red and purple sections. The sections split at the women’s knee making her a reddish color above and a purplish color on the right making the children half brown half purple. The women are also holding 2 babies, one hugging her and another looking at her face. We see the mother wearing a dress and she has one arm on a globe at the center of the picture. The globe is a mix of the purple and red tones and has a checkered cross pattern on it which starts to disappear at the right side of the globe. Underneath the globe it looks ice the ladies knee is holding it in place. The right side of the globe one baby seams to be holding the globe with arms up and the globe on his back. The baby has a Hercules hairstyle and is looking at a horizontal line. The baby next to him has both his arms in the air. His hands are not visible the pictures borders. The baby also has both legs spread rather then the baby in the left who has his legs together. All these elements are resting on the boat. Directly above the children we see a window. The window is all purple shaded with a brick frame around the window. We see a bar on the window and what looks like an air conditioner underneath it. On top of the window sill we see a skinny dog and parking sign. On top of the globe we see another green smudge on the painting. On the right side of the picture we see the ladies head almost invisible with a red keyboard
background. Next to her head we see another brown smudge looking like a finger print smudge also. Above the ladies head we see a design pattern. On top of her we see an entry to a building. Door way is covered by the ladies head and the pattern. Threes also 2 pillars with lions head on them. connecting them is the molding. on top of this we see a brown pattern and a brown smudge appearing to be blood. On the right of this we come across a patterned roof and finally the last light beige section. Appearing to be a building with an antenna on top. The buildings them self look like a new yorkish style. Also these buildings are very dim and barely visible. The buildings also give the painting a urban like atmosphere with the old pillars and moldings elements next to them.
Edlin Vasquez
Period 7
Sandy Skoglund is known for having repetition in her photographs. These two photographs, Germs are Everywhere, and The Cold War, are typical for what she photographs.
In the photograph, “Germs Are Everywhere,” it is mostly monochromatic in shades of green. The first thing that caught my eye was the light purple artificial branch that is right in the middle of the photograph. It makes it pop out because it is not green. Then there is an old woman on the left side with dark grey curly hair, with a tan skin. She has a green sleeveless shirt, to match the apple green background, and she holds an item which appears to look like a green cup in her hand that also matches the background. The old woman is sitting on a swivel sofa chair that is also green and blends in with its monochromatic theme. Next to the sofa chair there is another blending item that looks like a bottle of wine and it is next to the old woman’s feet, and her feet has green slippers. On the walls there are frames with various shapes of: squares, octagons, and diamonds and which are mostly on the left side. Although, you can not see the ceiling in the picture, there is a cylinder pale green lamp hanging from something. Going towards the right side of the photograph, there is a television sitting on a lamp table and the antennas on the television appear to almost be invisible. Next to the television there is a tall lamp with a shelf. The lamp is also pale green that matches the other lamp. The lamp has a cord attached to it at the very bottom that also makes it hard to see, just like the antennas. On the shelf of the lamp there is a fruit basket with fruits such as grapes, bananas, and probably pineapples because it is hard to see. To prove that Sandy Skoglund’s photographs are repetitive, this monochromatic picture is surrounded by bubblegum pink maggots. The old woman’s feelings are described to be unaware of noticing the germs that surround her. Everything seems to look still except for the crawling germs around the television, cup, chair, bottle, and the random branch in the center. There are no germs on the television screen, the old woman, floor, and lamp cord.
On the photograph, “The Cold War,” there is a contrast of shades of yellow and dark red. In this photograph the yellow background turns into multiple shades of yellow because of the lighting entering from the right side of the room. The colors of the room from the top right corner start from being a pale yellow, banana yellow, to a butter yellow. The contrasting color is a dried blood red. Going around the photograph towards the middle, there are a lot of red rockets and a lot of red army men on the two walls and floor pointing towards the corner of the room. The items on the walls and floor are more eye-catching because red shows up more and they are brighter and also how the items are shaped, pointy. Just like the picture of “Germs Are Everywhere,” this picture is also taken on a corner of a room. What they are really pointing at is a man on the floor. The army men toys with guns are mostly covering the whole left wall. Some of them are on a two-leveled table, which soon will be mentioned. The rockets on the floor are pointed up-ward and the ones on the wall are pointing down-ward. Going towards the middle of the photograph there is a noticeable middle-aged Caucasian man with dark hair lying on this stomach. His head is facing the floor, he has his right hand is covering his right side of his face, and his left hand on his hair, top of the head. The way he has his hands covering his face shows that he is trying to protect himself from harm. He looks very frightened because of the violence of the rockets and army men around him. The photograph shows that the man is nude but he is being covered by a yellow blanket, from his waist to his ankles. One of his feet stick out of the blanket, and placed on the wall. Next to the man, there is a yellow dog lying down next to him staring at the man’s face. The dog blends in with the yellow blanket, and it makes him very unnoticeable. Above the man’s head and arms there is a two-leveled table on top of him, and it shows the protection he desires. On the first level of the table there are three army men pointing at him, such as the second and top-level there are five army men. Also, on the top level there is a cord telephone. Believe that the telephone is a significance of calling out for help from this horror.
Both pictures have repetitive themes. This theme is being shown in “Germs Are Everywhere,” when the germs are being spread through out the photograph. It also shows in “The Cold War,” when the multiple rockets and army men are also being spread through out. They also have the almost the same scenery but with different colors and items surrounding when the pictures are both being taken at a corner of a room. They also do not show any sign of a ceiling, just floor and walls.
The pictures show difference when both pictures show different colors, color schemes, and techniques. The first picture, “Germs Are Everywhere,” is mostly monochromatic. Compared to the second picture, “The Cold War”, it is very contrasting. The first picture Skoglund uses various objects and shades of the background color, apple green. Things also blend in more. Then on the second picture she only uses multiples of the multiples, but less of other items and it makes it have fewer things to blend in with, but with multiple shades of the background color, yellow.
Sandy Skoglund’s technique is very unique, and very appreciative. It is not like other photographs that are just plain weird and not pleasant to look at. Just the awkwardness of her pictures also shows how cool it also looks.
This is an image of wangechi mutu. This picture has the picture of a black male’s head, which is big and has hair on it and he hair looks like it is not clean in the back of the image. In the middle of the head is some sort of skull piece or something similar to that or also it could be the part of a women body part, which is probably near the head of the body also. On top of the skull or what also could be the head of a women body are little pieces of this black thing which could also be the pieces of the hair of a black man’s head which is cut up that are just laid down on the top. Towards the front of the head there is an eye of a human body and the eye is open and it is looking up at something and i don’t know what it is and the image of the eyeball is in black and white and it is not colored. On the left side of the face there is another eye of some kind of animal or something like that and it is purple or dark blue with black eye balls and it is looking straight towards something else. Near the bottom of the back of the head there is an ear hanging down which is weird also because the ear is supposed to be on the side of a human bodies head and this one is hanging down towards the back of it and it is a bit small also. In the middle of the head there is a hand probably from a doctor or something like that and is checking the image of the eye using some kind of tool which looks like something I have never seen before and squeezing it very slowly with out too much pressure at all also and it is near a layer full of round eyelashes which the hand could be doing some type of experiment on the eye or the hand could be looking inside of the eyeball for certain evidence at the same time. Also in the middle of this image there is another eye and it is also opened and has some kind of blue make up on too with the black eyelashes. The bottom of the face is also a different human body part that this author used from magazines or collages too to create this image she has made. It is a female’s or male’s body and I believe it is the chin of the body too and the color of it is very light with some little dark shades on the top of it. The lips on this image are red and the bottom of the lip is has a little of the black shade on it too and the lips are kind of thick also and has little pieces of hair on it and the mouth is opened at a certain point where a long tongue is coming out of the mouth and hanging out of it in a swirling direction. The neck of this looks like it was drawn by the painter itself in the image and it is split in half and it is not even a shape it is just like a broken down piece of artwork and it was made into a neck and does not look like a neck at all whatsoever.
The first thing my eyes focus on when I stare at the picture is the midnight blue that makes the painting attracts your attention. The midnight blue is the main background and then you see all the surround colors. The midnight blue is more on the edges of the painting. The blue is used less in the middle. The blue is used more as a border for all the other colors. It is a solid color, compared to the others, which are made as shapes and are circulating. The next thing my eyes focus on is the gold ochre color that is designed like a moon. I see the shape as half a heart with snow white and black lining. In between the black and white there is a slash of yellow green. Then you can see a half triangle in a slate grey and seems like it is out of nowhere. It looks like the yellow green is interfering in the triangle. Then right in between the shapes on the left of the image, it is like a black outlined oval and it is flat in the bottom. Then in the middle of the painting, you see a big triangle which is outlined with gold ochre and white in the middle. The outline is not just lined it is kind of pencil scratched on the sides, with the same color. The right side of the triangle there is a “C” shape in red. It is as a bold color. Then the upper part just has a plain red dot. It is out of nowhere so it attracts attention to the painting. Since it is in the upper middle, you can see the oddness of the painting towards it. The bottom of the painting has a black shape that comes out of the midnight blue; it looks like it was drawn before the painting got started with colors. When you go back and see the gold ochre triangle, there is a continuing shape which looks to me as an open diamond. That goes back to the color of yellow green. In the painting only a couple of colors were used repeatedly. When you see the diamond, it looks like it is sideways, then you see that the inside is colored with some midnight blue then right in the middle of the shapes you see a slash of white, like the beginning of a knife. It goes through the shapes with the yellow green and gold ochre. The red that looks like a C is in the middle of that. All the colors are somehow together in my eyes they connect. It makes you thinking of a certain mood. Makes you wonder about the outdoors. But the white in the painting stops you from the focus of all the other colors. It tricks you because you see all these different colors then you see plain white. So your imagination goes back to something not as exciting. As if it is without color. When you get closer to the right of the painting you see the end of the white that looks like a knife. You see a bold black line that is like half a circle, to me it looks like a fish that is upwards, the more I focus on the painting the more I don’t just see shapes, I see life, I see animals. When I go back and see the right side of the painting towards the middle where the red C was I start imaging that there is like the shape of a chicken. The wing would be the black oval that I was talking about preciously and the end of the chicken could be towards the left of the paint where I talked about the yellow green. Then the midnight blue reminds me of the sky and the water. Towards the bottom right you see some white which looks like the tip of the paint brush. And the wooden part at the bottom of the picture also. I think the artist is trying to show how they are thinking and the imagination that is in their head at the moment. When they are finished with their painting they end up drawing the paint brush for remembrance. Also, with the red shape that I talked about previously I see an Arabic letter which means “D” in English. Through all the shapes and colors I think the painting shows us a lot of emotions. The shapes could stand for a different feeling every time we look at each color. I think the black is a bold color that shows the darkness of the painting and it reflects on the midnight blue which as I stated previously is the color for the ocean or night sky. There is a lot of dark colors that shows sadness and happiness at the same time. The blue is the one color that stands out the most because in some way it is the one that is used boldly in the painting. In the middle all the colors blend together to show that all the pieces are built together. The outside of the painting was the most important piece for the artist because it attracts the most attention to the audience. The painting has a colorful symbol. When I think about it deeply I think more about the world widely, since I have been looking at the painting for some time you get more ideas the more you pay attention to it. It seems to have all the colors of the earth; it is like it blends all the different cultures of this world and how we view it. It looks like the ocean because of life, and the reason I see animals is because it describes the earth, focusing more on it gives you a conclusion but I will not know what the painting truly means. But, if I drew the painting with all those colors it would be to describe my feelings. Also, if it is feelings, the ones in the painting don’t look like nice and cheerful emotions but more hurt or depressed, and that is why there is half of a heart in the painting or could be seen as a broken heart also. The light spots of red that stand out in the painting could be for love or for hate and being hurt. All the colors in the painting show how different everything in the world can seem.
HISTORY OF BLACK PEOPLE
I have chosen to write about Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting, “History of Black People”
The image is divided up into three divisions. They are separated by vertical lines.
When I first lay my eyes on Basquiat’s painting, I notice a person’s drawing placed in middle of the painting. The person is painted in cadmium lemon. The color appears to be more like that of an orange. The person’s image has two hands spread out wide. The left hand is stretched out whereas the right one is stretched out with the upper hand facing in the upward direction. Both hands look weird because they don’t have any fingers. The person’s image has two irregular shapes around the chest area. They look like eyes. Beneath them is another weird irregular shape. It looks more like a nose than a random shape on the body. It an unusual place to draw a person nose. The nose is right above the legs. The legs appear too short to support the upper body. There isn’t a foot on either one of the legs. The legs appear to be standing on another person’s shoulders. The other person is smaller than the one standing on him. It looks more like a stick figure than a person.
There is an object crossing through the person. The object appears to be an airplane. It is a dark blue plane. There is a white area on the upper part of the plane. It has markings on it. The markings are in writing. About nine letters are used but they don’t from a word. The writings are made in a light grey color. In the back of the plane are three windows. The back of the plane forms a curve going upwards. The curve holds four wings. Two of the wings are larger than the other two. The smaller wings lie right on top of the larger ones. At the bottom of the plane lie eleven stands. The stands lie on a solid object that seems to carry all of the planes weight. On the top of the plane are objects shaped like rectangles and triangles. Above the plane is an image of black person. One of his hands is pointing out towards the person painted in cadmium yellow. The other hand is pointing towards the plane.
Above him is a drawing of an eye. It is painted in black and has its eye lashes stretched out. The eye’s pupil is cut in half by a line that goes through the entire painting.
Below the plane is a writing of the word “SICKLE.” The word is in upper case letters. It is painted in white. The word “SICKLE” is significant to the image is a way that it represents the manual work done by black people in the past. Sickles are mainly used for gardening. Right below the word are more writings of other others. The words appear like jumbled letters and signs. One of the words seems to be a signature. Below it is another image. I can’t quiet identity it but it looks like a musical instrument that someone blows in to produce a sound. It is painted in the color similar to that of a banana. There are four lines in the middle of the object forming a rectangle. The back of the object seems to be made out of bird feathers. Right below the object is another word. Once again the word is “SICKLE.” Unlike before, this time the word is highlighted in white. The words letters are more spaced and larger than the other one’s. In front of the word is a short vertical line that seems to form an exclamation mark.
To the further left of the image lie two faces. They look more like masks than just faces. One of the faces is smaller than the other. They are similar is design. Both of the images are painted in a van dyke brown color. They have two burlywood eyes. Their teeth match in color with the eyes. Each one of their eyes is dissected by two white lines. The lines go up to their noses. Their noses are painted in a light blue color. The smaller face’s nose appears smaller than the larger one’s. Its left nostril appears closed. Both of the larger face’s nostrils are wide open. The two face’s mouths appear wide open. The smaller face seems to have a sad look whereas the larger one appears to be smiling.
Underneath the larger face is a similar image to that of the person and the plane described earlier on. This image is painted in all black except for the edges. They are painted in white. The upper part of the left side of the first section has a dark pink background whereas the lower one has a black background.
The further section to the right of the entire image consists of writings, stick images and coloring. At bottom are writings of “MEMPHIS” and “TENNESSE.” There is a writing in between the two city names. It is surrounded by a box. All the three words are written in black. They are written on a white background. To the right of white background is a black background. It has drawings of green tree branches. They look like plants. There is a word beneath them. The word is “HEMLOC.” It is colored in yellow.
There is a drawing of black image with white shadings on it. It looks like a person body without hands or legs. It has a face though. The face has two eyes and a nose underneath it. There is a mouth right below the nose. The eyes, nose and the mouth are colored in white. In the middle of the image is box with “SLAVE” written in it. The word has brownish shadings on it. Below the word are white shadings.
To the right of the person is a drawing of an insect. It looks like a spider. Its eight legs are spread out in different directions.
Above the spider is a black shadow with markings on it. The black shadow has two eyes with four dots underneath them. Below the dots is a writing of “A DOG GUARDING THE PH…” The writing is in white ink. A dark yellow marking follows the white one.
There are black markings in the upper part of this section.
The artist I chose to do my research on is Jerry Uelsmann. Uelsmann is a photographer. Most of his work lack color. He uses the contrast of the objects in his photograph to make it stand out. His style is different from the vast majority of people.
The photo does not have a title or I haven’t found the title for it. Most of the photo is in a dark shade of grey. A wall occupies the top sixty percent; on the wall is a picture of the ocean. The wall is colored dim grey, becoming darker in the top corners. A semi-reflective metal borders the picture. The frame of the picture is thick. The picture frame is not symmetrical. The picture frame appears to have a rough texture like it is eroding away. A light is focusing between the middle and top right of the frame. The light could represent the sun. The top half of the picture is made up of a large mass of light grey cloud that covers the entire sky. The sun withdraws behind the clouds. The bottom half of the picture, a storming sea. The sea borders on the color black. The sea looks like it can flip over a small boat. The bottom forty percent, a shore, instead of finding water, it finds the wall. A white rowboat, the object that sticks out the most in the photo. The boat is the brightest object in the photo. It is the object where the viewer sees first. The boat looks like it was made for tow people. It has two oars on it. Stuck on land, away from where it should to be. The boat is so close to the ocean yet it is so far away. The picture of the water looks like it is about to break out of the frame and washing everything away only to leave the boat floating on it. The boat is centered on the shore and pointing to the right. The details on the shore are hard to make out because of the low res. The shore is made of a darker shade of grey than the wall. This doesn’t draw away the viewers’ attention from the boat.
The same thing about the first can be said about the title of the second photo. What attracted me to this photo was a city made up of sand that was on a beach. The city made of sand is very detailed. The top half of the photo is occupied by the corner of a room. There is a window on the right side of the wall. The window is divided into a three by three panel of glass. Outside of the window is a tree. On the left side of the wall, what appears to be a portrait is hung on the wall. The shadow conceals the top left half of the portrait. I do not know what is in the portrait. The frame of the portrait looks like it is slightly tilted to the right. Under the portrait is a wooden chair with a cushion on it. The chair is colored black in the photo with a decorated white cushion. The walls are not smooth. Large rectangles are evenly divided and indented on the wall. The bottom of the wall is covered by a black material. The sun light coming from the window and the sunlight cast on the city made of sand are different. Light is strongest on the area behind the chair. The floor is made of sand instead of tiles. A piece of decorative vinyl is placed along the wall to protect it from touching the back of the chair. Below the vinyl, the walls are colored white. Above the vinyl, the wall is colored in a darker color. In the corner of the room is a small object reaching the height of the vinyl on the wall.
The third photo does not really have a title, too. What drew me to this photo were the sun and the person on the ground. The clouds are drowning out the sun’s light. The clouds are of a dark grey color. This would make the sun look brighter. The person seems to be in a somewhat desolate area. There are large trees in the landscape. The trees are black. The person is standing on a trail. The ground is colored in a dark shade of grey, while the trail is of a lighter color of grey. That person might be following the sun. The sky is brighter near the horizon. The elevation increases when moving to the right. The trail looks like it continues after the horizon ends.
Uelsmann probably used around three photographs to make this one piece. This was all done when computers where in their infancy and Photoshop did not exist. Today an experienced Photoshop user can create something almost exactly like this.
The first paintings I picked of Wangechi Mutu is called Untitled. I think she couldn’t find a name for this painting because it’s so unique and it’s so hard to give a specific name for is so she just called it untitled.
Her lips are huge. They are a brownish red color. Her lips look larger than her head. Her eyes are about the same size. Her eyes are spread apart from each other and they are blue. Her eye lashes are very long and she has an ear that is a human part. Her head is a weird shape. Her head color is gold with white holes in it. Her neck is the same colors. Now I see the body and her back is a gray and with white holes in it. Her hands and stomach is a human body parts. Her skim looks smooth. She is posing from the side and it looks like she is folding her arms. She has a skirt on that is very short and it is white. Her lower part of her body is weird looking. Its shape as if its suppose to be her bottom but it has different colors in it such as white, gray, red, yellow, green, and black. It looks like she has only one leg. Her leg is yellow and red with white holes on it. Then it looks like she has on a green shoe. Then I see a creature type on her back. Its hands are like spiders and it looks like its scratching her back. Its body looks disfigured. It’s bending its back that the feet are near his head. This creature has human legs with white heels on its feet. Its face looks deformed. It has a huge mouth. The lips are very big and they are reddish brown color and its teeth are really white. It looks like its eyes are blue. Its eyes are huge and they are close together. On the side of the girl it looks like a bottle of some sort of drink that popped open. The color of the drink is a ruby red. The bottle color is a brownish red color. Then there are strange legs which are human and it has on heels. The heels are black and it looks like it has on a dress. Lastly I see brown butterflies flying around. The background of the painting is black and gray. When Wangechi Mutu uses those colors on the background I wasn’t expecting that. Since everything else in the picture is a light color I was expecting a lighter color in the background. I think the idea Wangechi Mutu had in the painting was different. She uses the colors very well.
The next painting I chose is called Untitled also and it’s from Wangechi Mutu. The first thing I notice in this painting is that her lips are big. I also notice that she has hair on her head. Her head looks like there is something hanging off of it. It looks like there is a white thing hanging off her head. It is white with red string coming from it. Her eyes look tired and they are big. Her head is tilt back and she looks tired. Her hair is a blond brown color and her face is colored has a brown and white color. Around her mouth is white. Her face is brown. Now near her neck the painter, Wangechi Mutu, put a motorcycle on her neck. Wangechi made it where it is part of the painting like it is connected to it. It really seems like the artist put a lot of thought into and time into it. There is only the front part of the motorcycle and it is all blue. Her arm looks as though it is broken and it is a human part. As I look at her chest and stomach area her nipples are bright red and it looks like she is pregnant. The nipples look like they are bleeding and it is like something just gushed out her stomach. There is a lot of blood and it looks like and umbilical cord is comes from her stomach and there is a type of insect hanging from it. The insect looks a lot like a butterfly with a long tall and a big head. The insect is black and brown. Her stomach looks pail and it looks like she is dying. The other half of the motorcycle is on her bottom
It’s very weird I didn’t expect a motorcycle to be in the painting. I think that Wangechi put the 2 parts of the motorcycle in different parts of her body is because I think that the motorcycle ran her over. She getting run over was the result of the insect coming out of her and her bleeding. That also resulted her looking so down. She looks depressed and looks like her life is over. Her legs are human parts. It looks like she has on black stockings. She has black heels on her feet. The background of the picture is black and gray.
Both the paintings Wangechi Mutu created are similar. They both are women and they both have human body parts. They both seem to have that sexy appeal in the paintings. There title is the same. These painting are elegant and perverse. They can tell you so much when you look at the painting. They both tell there own stories. The first picture tells a unique story. You can see the look in her eyes. They say when you look in ones eyes you can tell a lot in it. You can see there story. The second picture is the same thing you can tell in its eyes what the story is. Wangechi Mutu creates glamorous painting. She creates them using fashion magazines. She uses collages to create her own creation. She uses books about African work. Wangechi Mutu has a gift. She is really artistic and creates her paintings unique.
The Jackson Pollock painting “Male and Female” holds inside it’s twisted abstract corners many different images. Pollock’s painting seems t be split in two both interpretation on a Male and a Female. The foreground of the painting is a sky blue then two towers of steel grey shoot up from the bottom of the canvas. And connecting these two towers is an off white box and inside three diamonds made of gold and sky-blue as there border and small checks of blue and red with an inside of egg white. Behind one tower on the left hand side is another smaller tower a thick black outline with a white striped inside shaded and marked with the sky-blue and yellows.
For example of the split screen; On the male side or the left there is a large brick red shape with a light blue circle inside which looks like a sideways vulture. Perhaps to show a man’s rough scavenger side and for the females the series of numbers on the right side show a woman’s need to hyper analyze things. When I look at this oil painting I see the said ingredients to a boy and girl. The ingredients being slime and snails and puppy dog tails for the boys and sugar, spice and everything nice for the girls. On the left hand side there are wisps of white for puppy dog tails then a black blob like thing with canary yellow eyes for slime, lastly a small red and yellow spiral in the likes of a number nine or a snail. Then on the girls side small speckles of white represent sugar while the yellows reds and grey signify spice, and the image of a small butterfly on the bottom of the right side of the canvas shows everything nice.
The painting shows how men and women deal with emotion and feelings. On the men’s side red and yellow and white sparks decorate the top, men are generally stereotypically depicted as having sparking anger and rage. Then on the women’s side there is black smoke and snuffing flames of yellow, since women are shown to let things fester and not letting things go so the suffocating attributes of smoke represent it perfectly.
I continue to look and see a white rose on the right, which would symbolize purity which women are known for then a boot on the left to show a working man’s toughness. Also on the men’s side I see a small field of Barley and since Jackson Pollock had an alcohol problem during the time is seems right he would place it on the men’s side. Then I see a shell fish on the top of the woman’s side in dark red next to a half moon of whites and yellows. Women are associated with water and the moon since emotions are said to be controlled by the moon, the shell fish might represent a women’s hard shell but soft insides when it comes to challenges. The moon is between the men’s and the woman’s side but closer to the men’s. This might be Pollock’s way to show that men do have emotion and can be influenced by them.
Jackson Pollock had a long outstanding problem with alcoholism his whole life which might of influenced the darker colors and the need to send and image and foundation across.
Jackson Pollock said “When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.” Jackson Pollock is referencing his more “Splatter” painting but that the fact that he goes into his own mind just shows that he might just have no meaning whatsoever! Analyzing abstract art is hard work, to look at every corner, stroke, and shape and then trying to understanding what the shape it what it means to the artist and then converting it into what it means to you is long and tiring. Jackson Pollock’s work is especially difficult. In the corner on his male side I see a red question mark inside a light yellow box. What does it mean to be human? Is it gender, or personality? Is it by what we are made of or our emotions? All these questions Jackson Pollock addresses but are unknown to the on looker since not even the artist knew. He wanted for us to tell him and come up with it all us. One thousand words on and abstract painting and what we see. It’s hard to that when you just come up with the same things over and over again that only seems to become one or two sentences. I see shapes and images and create theories but they keep shooting themselves down.
I see faces on the female side hidden in the strokes perhaps to show how women hide themselves under complicated facades. In the middle with the diamonds I see a women’s backside but only her lower half. No shoulders no head on legs; just a waist and bottom. Maybe it isn’t a woman even though it has supposed curves maybe it is a man.
Jackson Pollock is a confusing artist as are all abstract expressionists are. The true meaning only know to themselves just to arise question in their viewer’s minds to open up and perhaps get question to what they themselves want answered but cannot come up with the question themselves and use their talents to ask a complicated question and wanting a complicated answer back something they can cling to. An answer they might have already turned into an unknown painting.
After spending some time analyzing some of Francesco’s art work, I decided to pick three different pieces that Francesco Clemente has created. The first piece of art work is called “Waiting”, the second is called “Abbraccio”, and finally the third piece of art that I managed to pick is called “Three Dead Soldiers”. The reason because I have chosen these three drawings, is because each one of them had something that when I first looked at them, caught my eye. Each drawing had some sort of interesting detail that made me daze off while staring into it and think of what Francesco’s purpose was while painting these drawings.
The First painting that I am going to describe is “Three Dead Soldiers”. The reason I picked this drawing first, was because it was one of my favorites. When I first looked at this drawing, my eyes were not able to focus on just one thing. The whole entire painting came to me as one big blob of confusion. Then as I looked at it again each piece was sorted out, and I began thinking of what every detail meant. The first thing that came to me is the fact that there are three groups of three people. Each group of three has sort of the same features. Since the title of the painting is three dead soldiers, I think that each of these groups is fighting for the same cause. It is interesting how the viewers can’t see the features in them. Maybe the reason for this is because they are unknown. Maybe they have an importance, but they have been forgotten overtime. What caught my eye was one of the man in the top right. This man is the one with the most features. He also seems to be above the other two men that are grouped with him. This leads me to believe that he could be the leader of his group, or maybe the hero of the battle he was in. He could also be someone who is engraved in history for some great accomplishment. Another object that caught my attention was the purple flower in the middle. What made this flower stand out to me is the fact that it is small, but it was placed in the center of a big blob of bright yellow in the drawing. This flower could represent the people’s appreciation and gratitude for the effort of these soldiers. Two last things that made me think, but I was not able to figure out, it the fact that all the grouped soldiers seem to be looking out at the viewers. Also the fox in the back, I am not sure why the fox was placed in the middle of the painting. The only reason I thought of was that usually we see foxes at night and night represents end of day, and this could mean that its end of the day and the battle has ended.
The second drawing that I will describe is the “Abbraccio” which is two bodies interlaced in each other. When I first looked at this picture, I automatically connected it to the title because abbraccio to me is very similar to the word “abraço” which means hug in Portuguese. There are many weird things about these two bodies. First thing that I noticed was the ugly and monstrous face of the body facing the viewers. Its features are very dark and scary meaning that it could be someone full and bad intentions. Some one mean and bad. Another detail that I noticed was the yellow body with no face. One side of the body seems to have a feminine side, for its arms are thin and non muscular. On the other hand, the right side of the body seems to be masculine for it has very thick muscular arms. I think that this could represent mixed emotions between these two bodies. The flower taking the place of the yellow body can represent the loss of innocence. These two bodies seems to be having a love moment, but the body with the mean and ugly face on seems to be taking over the other body, and since he’s the one holding the flower, since flowers could represent innocence, but also death on the other hand, I thought that the flower could be representing the fact that he’s exploiting the other body’s innocence. I think that the teal green behind them, represents where they are. Maybe they are in a deserted and lonely place. The darkish royal blue on standing above these two bodies could mean that what is happening between these two people is something bad and shameful.
The last drawing that I chose to analyze is the “waiting”. This drawing is simple but yet interesting. If put thought into it, its meanings start coming to you. Obviously the first thing that would probably catch every viewer’s eye is the man in the middle. This man in the drawing looks very helpless. Due to his upsetting facial expression and his poor clothing, I think that he’s either a poor guy, or a worker. Maybe he is also diseased and sick. The fact that he seems to be looking up, means that he is seeking for hope. Another interesting thing that caught my attention is the way that he is standing. He is in a stance, like in a suspense position which could also mean that he is waiting for a fight.
The dark bluish grayish background sets the emotions for this drawing. When things are dark they usually represent something bad. Which in this case is the sad man. The dots in the background give the picture a rocky effect. This could represent that this man is probably in a poor, homeless and hopeless place.
I think that these three drawings that I picked all have something in common. All of them seemed to have some connection with love and mixed emotions. What made me come to this conclusion is that every one of them had faces with weird features, and dark backgrounds representing emotions.
I chose Jerry Uelsmann as my artist. I liked his art because it wasn't of a known person who has a certain pass that is told through the portrait. The artist I chose takes amazing photographs which are unbelievable to the eye. His photographs combine human and natural elements, realistic features with non-realistic things to make the photograph noticeable, unique, and different.
The photo catches the whole eye; it is not possible to immediately focus on a certain thing first. The picture is in black and white. It portrays a woman in the water. Some may take it as drowning, and it very well may depict a drowning, but the way the water is circled around her head makes her look peaceful. The circles in the water look as if they are the first drops of rain hitting a puddle. The arms of the woman in the photograph are gently crossed across her chest, showing no sign of struggle. She is at peace. The implication of the drowned woman is that she was in distressed during life, but has found death and release from the pain of living. This is reinforced by the imagery of the angelic figure in the background. Although the angel is in the background, it is centered in the art, drawing the eye naturally from woman to angel. You notice that the angel is emerging from the water. This angel figure has no facial features in contrast to the realistic female face of the woman in the water. The water tends to get a little wavy towards the back of the photo where the angel figure is located. The body of this figure is dark making it mysterious. The wings attached to it tend to be a dark grey and are about the same size of the mysterious body. The figure appears to either have recently risen form the water or descended from the sky. Because of the darkness of the body and a lack of expression on the angels face it seems like the angel figure could either be an angel of death coming to claim the soul of the dead woman or an angel who has descended to take her to heaven. A parallel can be drawn from this image to Shakespeare's Hamlet. The particular character that it summons to mind is Ophelia. Her extreme distress and madness led her to suicide, and the water of the picture and the woman's presence in it are a powerful connection to the play. Before her suicide, Ophelia was a submissive and well-behaved girl. Driven crazy by her pain, she ultimately drowns herself. The death of Ophelia released a young girl from the pain of her madness.
The composition of the art is suggestive of Ophelia's character from Hamlet. Although it is unlikely to be the case, the modern art photograph is reminiscent of the painting, "The Lady of Shallot". That painting clearly depicts an Ophelia-like figure driving her boat towards her death. The woman in the painting is dressed in clothing of a different age. That painting shows a more literal representation of Ophelia's death.
A second photograph by Jerry Uelsmann can also be seen to have a connection to Ophelia in Hamlet. The second picture shows a boat on the water, along with a house. Mountains and trees surround the water. The levitating boat catches the eye first. There's a house in the water and a bird flying above. The imagery of this piece of art also is suggestive of Shakespeare and Ophelia. The connection between the two pieces of Uelsmann's art is the water. In the first picture there is a very clear representation of a woman submerged in a body of water. When compared to the second picture, one sees the boat that perhaps the woman used to bring herself deep into the water. As it returns to shore, it levitates, floating about the water that it should be in. This is symbolic of the release of pain and stress that the woman had before she killed herself. After her death the boat is capable of floating through the air, so great was the relief of the woman to be released from her suffering. The floating boat reminds the viewer of the angel in the previous work of art. Both are unnatural figures to see in a painting. They bring the viewer's mind to images of the mystical and unexplained.
Art is a subjective thing. It is open to the interpretation of the viewer. In my mind, when I saw the art of Jerry Uelsmann, I immediately made a connection to a book we recently read. Although the connections between Hamlet and the art of Uelsmann are only my point of view, I believe that clearly the artist had more in mind than just water. If anything, it is important to an artist who uses so many fictional images for the viewer to have some freedom to view the art how they want it to be seen. The photography and British literature both catch you in awe when looking and reading.
After spending some time looking at some of Gerhard Richter painting I choose two different pieces of art that he had created. I feel that Gerhard Richter is an astonishing artist and he has work in so many different way of arts it's amazing, and the painting that he does makes it easier for me to understand his ways of do it his paintings and express to my feelings. The first is called “Mother and Child”, the second is called “Children”. The reason I have chosen these two pictures is because each one has specials detail to it and his entire painting look real. And his painting speaks to you because what is in the painting.
The first painting is “Mother and Child” which at first looks you see a mother holding a baby boy .I know that the baby is a young baby boy because the baby is wearing light lavender color that means that is a boy. When I first took a look at this painting I noticing that the mother had a young look around 25 to 30 years of age. The baby boy has a young look around to 1 to 2 month. The relationship between the baby seen that they are very close, because the mother is breast-feeding. When you breast-feeding the baby its seen that you are more close it to your baby. The mother faces look like she is kind of sad or sleeping and her hard is bender down looking at her baby faces .I think that she is think how amazing is to have a baby. On the background is an antique color with a kind of whitish in the air smoke. On the right side of the painting there is a very dark indigo. In the center of the painting there is a bright white color where the mother and child is sitting. The painting look like that is faded, because the women and the baby look like a ghost. The painting also is stretched out, or was washed away ,because the picture show how the people is kind of washed away and is going on the right sides. The lady doesn’t look like she is married because it doesn’t show a ring on her left figure. I think that the mother is sitting on a chair. She looks like she has a type of bracelet on her left hand and she also has a type of cloth or blanker on her leg’s.
The second painting that I got is the “Children’’ and this painting shows a baby eating baby some kind of baby food like yogurt or a sauce . All around the baby month there is a kind of yellow ochre food in the baby faces. On the baby nose it appears to have some food on the top of the nose. The baby seen very awake with his eyes width open. The baby eyes color is blue medium. On the background of the painting half of the color is
very dark blown and the other half is light brown. The baby is sitting on some kind of baby chair near a table where the baby is eating the baby foods. The baby has a long bib all around his body to protect his clothes from the sauce and the baby is also wearing a dark blue sweeter. The baby has a scared looks on his faces because something or someone got the baby scared. The baby have one eyebrow up and the other one normal. The baby is hold a silver spoon with both hands. on the table have some a kind of glass or plastic cup with some juice or water for the baby to drink after he finished his food. The baby have a fat look that he look like he is 9 months or 10 months. The baby is eating on the dinner room, but why did the artist color so dark on the background. I think it should be some kind of light color because is a diner room.
As I examined both of these great paintings that I found both of his painting have a lot of similarities between the two. I feel Gerhard Richter did a great job on these paintings and the way he makes paintings so real with one another is a great way to examine them. Gerhard Richter did all his painters very real and all have a real or natural look. All of his painting have some people to illustrates better his works. All his painting show real life and if you take your time to look you will see all the amazing things he did to all his painting. He also makes all his painting real life like family, mother, child and all the thing you can think about that relates to life on this days and now.
I decided to write my research paper on the artist Sandy Skoglund because Sandy Skoglund’s photography can catch the attention of anyone looking at it. The way Sandy makes her photographs is very interesting because they have a lot of meaning behind them and can be portrayed in many different ways. Sandy Skoglund is known as an American photographer and an installation artist, installation art is art that is created, constructed, or installed on the site where it is exhibited, often incorporating materials or physical features on the site. Sandy Skoglund’s pictures are tableaux looking, meaning living pictures. Looking at her photography is like looking at it yourself as if it was happening right in front of your eyes. Sandy Skoglund is a brilliant and talented photographer that knows how to work the camera in making her photography look surreal. Surrealism is known as a form of art and literature developed in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or non rational significance of imagery arrived by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc. Also the photographer Sandy Skoglund is known as a surrealist because of her way of surrealism in her pictures.
One of Sandy Skoglund’s famous photographs is “Dogs on the Beach”, I chose this picture because this picture captured my attention on what Sandy Skoglund was portraying. The photograph “Dogs on the Beach” consist of a man laying in the lower left corner with mans best friend (dogs) surrounding him at a beach scene. This photograph has very dull and pale colors: the sand is bisque and eggshell color, some of the dogs are misty rose color and the other dogs are brown ochre and burnt sienna color, the sky is a light salmon color, and the man on the lefty corner is a pink light color. All these colors are very interesting colors because they are mute and sort of monotone colors that can capture the eye of anyone looking at this photograph. My interpretation of Sandy Skoglund’s photograph is that she is comparing men to dogs (man’s best friend) as “bums” and using the scene of the beach helps interpret her idea of beach bums better. In Sandy Skoglund picture besides the lazy man in the left corner there is many lifeless large dogs surrounding the scene. Large dogs are most commonly known as apathetic creatures. By the images given in this photograph my opinion about what Sandy Skoglund portrays men as lazy and a bum figure. The saying “beach bums” can be related to Sandy Skoglund’s photograph “Dogs on the Beach” because it has a man with his best friend (dogs) on a beach just relaxing being lazy. The way Sandy Skoglund photographed this image; you can see the meaning behind it. The picture can have a different meaning besides the way I interpret it. The scene beach is very interesting because the beach is known as a place to go relax and lay in the sand or play in the water just to be free. The beach is a place where you can go to free yourself and just be relaxed. Also a man is no one without their best friend (dog). My opinion on this is that men find it easier talking to an animal before they talk to a friend because an animal can’t give you a response you might not want to hear. Men are hard to connect to and speak what’s on their mind. This is another way Sandy Skoglund could portray men as “beach bums” because they don’t like to talk about there problems, they just want to keep it to themselves and do nothing about it.
Another great image of the artist Sandy Skoglund is the photograph of “Radioactive Cats 1980” I chose this second picture because the way the photograph is arranged. The photograph is set up with a dull background and bright cats all more the photograph. The photograph “Radioactive Cats 1980” consist of to elderly people in their small kitchen type room with cats running all over the place. The colors in this photograph are very simple and plain. The elderly white man is sitting on a chair, while is elderly wife has her head in the refrigerator. The color of the walls, chairs, table, refrigerator, elderly man’s suit, and the elderly woman’s gown are all a gainsboro, gray, and gray light color. The twenty- five cats in the image are a greenish yellowish color with a shiny glow to go along with these very exciting colors. My interpretation of this photograph is that elderly people once they become elderly of course tend to have cats as their family instead of actual family, whatever the reason for that may be the fact remains that elderly people are more opt to own cats as pets over younger people. Elderly people like to care for cats because while their actual family may not be around as regularly any more the cats are always there to keep them company during the day and to purr them to sleep at night. Also it is fairly obvious that Sandy Skoglund is trying to make a point about the cats because while the background and all the surrounding colors besides the cats are a dark,dismal,rain cloud grey the cats are (just like the title states) a radioactive greenish color. A very important clue into this photo is the fact that the elderly couples faces are not being shown, this represents the idea that it does not matter who exactly the people are because you get the point that they are old and they have cats. When viewing this picture I also get the feeling that Sandy is trying to say that cats seem to take over the household of that they live in. There are cats on the table cats on the fridge and quite frankly cats everywhere in the kitchen and the old couple just go on with their lives as if the cats aren’t even there. Over all this image just like every other Skoglund photograph are carefully created to provoke a lot of thought and conversation and they all complete that task extremely well.
Larry Rivers is known as the father of pop art. And sometimes he is under appreciated for pop art! Larry Rivers has accomplished many things through out his life. He’s a multi talented person he’s was a painter, musician, sculptor, poet and an actor etc. the list goes on Larry Rivers was a very successful man. He was also referred many times as a renaissance man! He lived a fulfilling life until her died in 2002.
The artist that I have chosen is Larry Rivers almost al of Larry Rivers paintings have great meaning behind what he puts into his work. Most of Mr. Rivers art work was painted on oil canvas. The first painting that caught my eye by Larry Rivers was “The Golden Oldies”. In this painting there is so much going on there in a solder in uniform and right beside him is a reflection of another solder. With the American flag through out the background and everything in this painting seems to have relation to one another and connects to the Vietnam War that finished three years before or it could have to do with the Cold war. Larry Rivers painted “The Golden Oldies” series at a crucial time when everybody who was involved in the war was affected by these wars. There are also a couple packs of Camel cigarettes in al different colors like his other painting Camel Quartet scattered about the painting. Cigarettes were a big thing back in the early 1900’s everyone smoked. People acted like they didn’t know how awful cigarettes were back then. Behind the painting is the Camel Cigarettes logo running around. The red in this painting is very symbolic meaning behind it makes the flag and the solders pop out from everything else it also shows relationship between the solder and the American flag. “The Golden Oldies” was a series of paintings that Larry Rivers completed in 1979he turned his
Own characteristics historical approach of the 60’s and 70’s. People say that Larry Rivers had a pop personality and he showed that in his work. This influences other artists to try and do the same.
Another one of Larry Rivers painting that really stood out to me is called “Now And Then”
This painting was painted in 1981. On the left hand side is an outline of a women in black and white holding a baby. This women has a very suddle look on her face and as you look in the dead middle of this painting you seen Larry Rivers sitting a chair wit a red line across his chest. He looks very tired and won out he has a confused look on his face. It looks like Larry has mixed emotions. Towards the right is a portrait of him again only this time he’s wit dark haired women with red lipstick on and she’s in a black bathing suit. In this part of the painting Mr. Rivers has a mischievous look on his face as if he is doing something wrong. This woman has a big beautiful smile on her face and she looks so happy. She is hugging him in this painting. Larry Rivers was having an affair and was caught up and stuck in between two women his wife and baby and his mistress. Again Larry Rivers uses red to empathize important thing with these women wearing red lipstick makes her stick out and seem like a vivacious person. And the red stripe across his as he’s sitting in the chair makes him look stuck and he can’t escape. There also seem to be on the wall in the painting of “Now and Then” Larry Rivers other painting “Ready Aim” is going down the wall in many separate pictures. In different colors down in rows. Larry Rivers painted “Ready Aim” in during the Boston Massacre. I think that come part of Larry rivers wanted to kill himself and but him out of hurting other peoples feeling and without making a crucial decision that could change his life forever. This was one of the few paintings that showed Mr., Rivers personal life and how he felt at this point in time. This shows his personality but it isn’t pop art. Most of the painting is abstract and faded out. In the middle of this painting when he’s sitting in the middle of the painting he has his left hand hiding behind his right hand. This is symbolic because on his left hand would be his wedding ring and he jus so happens to be hiding and it showing his right hand. I think that at this point in time he feels stuck and he cares about both women. There both different who he really cares about and it is tearing him apart. This situation is turning him and making him view thing s as a different person. This painting has great meaning behind it and it explains how confusing his life is at this point in time.
The last painting that I chose is the “Berdie in the Garden” in 1954 he painted this painting. This woman is Augusta Burgers mother Larry Rivers mother in law her name was Berdie Burger he was very close to his mother in law and he confined in her. Even after Augusta and Larry got a divorce they were still very close. In this painting looks mean and not someone who was easy to get along with she has a frown on and her eyes are squinted. She’s wearing a white summer dress with poke a dots on it. She looks really tired and hot her hair is frizzed she looks obese. Her feet are crossed, and her arms look like there dangling. The background of the painting is dark and gloomy but has a tint of green in it. She looks like she never goes out side she is very pail and looks miserable but at peace she looks worn-out. I’m not sure why this painting is named “Berdie in the Garden” that shows that Larry Rivers wasn’t a judging person and this is what people mean by you cant judge a book by its cover. This painting also shows that Larry Rivers had a different view on art. I would of thought if I just seen the title of the painting it would be bright and beautiful wit colorful flowers and a joyful portrait of his beloved mother in law. Mr. Rivers was on the front cover of New York Times and Time magazine and has periodically been in news papers and magazines throughout his life. His artwork has been in all kinds of art galleries around the world like the Marlborough Gallery, F.I.A.C. and Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington he’s traveled to Africa, Paris and Brazil and many other countries. He’s been in a couple jazz bands and has been a Mc at clubs. He had two sons and lived a great successful life. And when he dies in August 2002 his obituary was in everything.
The artist I pick is Jerry Uelsmann he seems like he sees lots of dramatic types of pictures and still mixtures some of them. Three different pictures really made me think about the same thinks and was children abuse that made interesting thoughts about it. They are all untitled but are all different in a scary way. One of they is a face of a little kid that is very sad in a dark place looking sown and with a sad smile, he seems like he hurt and he doesn’t know really what directing he really going. And then looking at his face you see a wrist that is like someone was hitting him. The hand is thick and big with perfecting of every specific detail a hand has. Everything is black and white the shadows are very detail and very easy to see. My understanding of this is like a kid getting hurt or push or that abuse by their parent. Jerry Uelsmann has been a fantastic and explorer of the boundaries of photographic that is one of the reasons that some of his photographic have so much in common but same meaning different details. Some of his pictures are base on bodies of water, details plants, floating trees, clouds, reflection just like the wrist on the kids’ face his work is base on emphasizing the ambiguities of space and scale. He does what he can on the computer but he invests the most incredible details he can and I make so much meaning. On his pictures he bases on the experiences into mental and emotional order. Rather than our lives being a set of disjointed events. His work is a master printer producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to dozen enlarge at a time to produce his final images. Similar in techniques to rejlander, Uelsmann is champion of the idea that final image need not be tied to a single negative, but may be composed of many. One of the other picture was some three girls behead a tree or they look scary and sad he does have some trees that look like it hiring on the florets and it show dramatic looks like they are scary of something and doesn’t know where to go,. He doe shave some images that are some of the reflecting that are showing like they are on the water like if they were going to drown their self everything is a perfecting conditions like he made the art on his computer there is no way he could have do this just by taking the pictures. This pictures is dark k and has lots of shadows, it all made by black and white with different meanings and made me connect to the other picture by showing me that little girls are running from something and show me that they are afraid and hiring meaning that something probably already happen to
Jerry Uelsmann when he was a little kid. He made a bush of grass in the water that looks like is floating like the trees are just there but with no soil and no earth that is it looks like a dream with different things like he just imagining different when he was doing this it looks like he was dreaming of something dark and sad like something on him didn’t let him put different colors or anything bright and just dark color and that is lots of black. The other picture I choose was this woman in the medium of this room just looking strait forward like something was bothering her and she doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t know what to say she looks like someone hurt her and she doesn’t really know what to do some people are in the back but you can’t really see much because they look like they not in the meaning of the picture. This show some of the same meaning of the rest of the pictures but this shows much slavery that is looks like she is this house where she works at but she is treat just like a slave. There is this shirt on the middle of the room that will possible be her husband this can a story of woman who was left by a man that is meaning that her sad face and her sown eyes with her skinny body like she was really depress. There is this man that is on the window like he looking toward her but he doesn’t seem like he moving or something there is this strange woman in the door it seem like she leaving and that could be another reason why my solution if this picture is that this woman is sad because her man did cheat on her this picture can made sense like the artist lost hope and his dream was crush or something and this dark house where there is no sun is all dark he did black and white again and he reflect this florets be hide her that it shows right where the woman in the door is and some outside of the man who is standing in the window just looking strait at the woman. There is more windows on this house but they are all in the dark ally on the places that is no shadow at all like going strait to the door and you will be abler to see like two more. The purpose why I got this artist is just because he made me think of all this possible solution why people hurt other and how not only kids or woman can get hurt and how someone of this can’t be true but can in the same time this shows that not everything we do is a dream came true but it can always be a nightmare coming true. This concludes that dark moments are as important as if it was colorful the meaning can be as more intense that any other color or anything else that lots of other colors can make and just by having a meaning to do something you can create anything.
Mike Serafim April 16, 2008
Jim Dine
The “The Boy and the Owl” painting is one of Jim Dine’s painting that really stood out to me. It’s a picture of Pinocchio petting an owl on the back. The observer gets a chill up his spine looking at this painting because it looks so dark and evil. There’s no color in the picture except for different shades of black and gray. Around Pinocchio is where the deepest shades of black are. It’s totally pitch back. It’s as the darkness is swallowing Pinocchio up. Pinocchio takes about half the picture up. He has an evil grin on his face as if he wants to do something evil. It reminds me a lot of Chucky. His eyes are starring at the owl as if his mesmerized by it. His eyebrows are up as if his astonished by something. His nose is quite long showing that he probably just lied. As scary as Pinocchio looks the owl his petting is even scarier and creepier. The Owl is about half the size of Pinocchio. Its feathers are made up of different kind of shades of gray. Its has a thin sharp beak. It’s perched on a dark black twig. Almost as black as the darkness around Pinocchio. The scarier part of the owl is it’s eyes. It feels almost like the owl is looking straight at the viewers eyes and connecting with him or her. The viewer almost feels hypnotized by them.
The second painting I chose was “ Technicolor.” I chose this painting because it looks simple but if you stare at it enough it starts to speak to you and you realize what the true meaning of it really means. Its two skulls one on each side of the paper. One is black and white and the other is full of vivid and bright colors. The skull that’s black and white is on the left of the paper. The one that’s full of colors is on the right. The painting looks almost as if someone folded it in half and that’s how the painter separated the two skulls. There’s a thin white strip that separates the two pictures. The black and white skull doesn’t look scary but it actually looks like it’s scared of something. Maybe Dine is trying to show that even skulls are scarred of death. It’s right eye seems to be broken and it also seems bigger than the left eye. It’s teeth has an overbite adding to the fact that the skull seems scarred. The center of the skull’s forehead is totally white. Than it darkens towards the side. The bottom half of the picture is white and the top half is gray with different types of black shades. The skull on the right seems way more livelier and happy than the skull on the right. Unlike the skull on the left the background of this skull has a light blue with white clouds on the back. It’s eyes seem perfectly fine and symmetrical. It’s teeth line up perfectly with each other almost as the skull is smiling. It’s jaw bone seems a lot more defined and strong than the one on the left. The center of the skull’s forehead is a golden yellow with a glare of white on the top tip. The side of it’s forehead has a light purple color to it. Both of the skull’s cheek bone are orange. The cheekbone on the right is a little darker than the one on the left. Also it has a green brownish strip going through it that disappears to the right. On the top of it’s nose and between the skulls eyes there’s a pink stripe which does not go past the top of the eye. The pink stripe is between two other white stripes. In the center of the skulls face the color is a vivid blue that is a little darker than the blue in the background. The lower jaw of the skull is a really light red lightly painted. In the middle of the red jaw there are some small drops darker shades of red. The thing that mostly catches my eyes on this picture is the skull’s nose. It looks like an upside down broken heart.
The next painting I chose is the one I liked the almost out of any of Dine’s paintings. When I seen this picture I knew who I would be doing my paper on. It’s called “ Four Hearts in Silver.” It should actually be called four hearts in black since the hearts are not actually surrounded by silver but by black ink. There are four hearts. One on each corner of the paper. None of the hearts seem to touch each other. The heart on the top left hand corner of the paper is purple. It’s not completely purple though. It has some blobs of silverish, clayish colors on it. The one on the top right hand corner is yellow. It also has the same color blobs all over it. But this one also has some black ink dripping down it giving it an effect like the eye of a person that was crying and that had makeup on.
The bottom left heart is not much different from the top right heart except that the color is a reddish pink. It also has a few more black stripes going through it than the yellow one. The last one is located on the bottom right o the paper and the color of this one is green. This one has the most black stripes going through it. The color of the hearts seem to darken starting from the left going to the right as if the heart is getting sadder and sadder. The background is all black but the way its painted is different in some of the parts of the painting. On the top half of the painting the black seems to be smuggered in. On the bottom half the black is painted in strips making it a raining effect.
Jerry Uelsmann Photo Description
Jerry Uelsmann's photography inspired me so much from the moment I saw it because of its texture and composure. Since it is black, white and gray this might be the reason why my eyes attracted to it right away. Also the abstract itself is magnificently gorgeous all on its own. The three pieces of art work chose from this artist are two that remain untitled and one named "Symbolic Mutation"
The first piece of art work that caught my eye from the three was "Symbolic Mutation". I suppose it is almost certainly because of its evident ethical message it’s trying to send out to the viewer. The message it reflects on is domestic violence that exists toward women universally. It is in a way a interpretation of mistreatment that occurs globally. This photo in a way setting an example that this epidemic is accurate and occurring more and more. This photo is reinforcing that we as intelligent humans beings that we are should spot this and prevent it from getting any worse than it already is. The picture is black, white and gray, it pretty much resembles an old news paper ad. The most visible part of the abstract is a hand rolled up into a fist, located to the right side of the photo characteristically it resembles a mans rough and violent hand. Rough because it looks as if it belongs to a cold hearted man that is capable of wrapping his fingers around your neck and strangling you to death and I also say unforgivable because the hand is demonstrating a sort of violent man’s hand that if he has abused of the young girl to the left side of the photo it's just unforgivable. A man that hits a women is not really a man so why should he be treated like one or forgiven for that matter. The photo has a lot of dark shadows in it and only little light this could be representing the dark side of a man where there’s lots of hate and regretful ness and lonely a little light of joyful harmony. The background is pitching black as if the dark door way to hell where once you enter you can't return. In the middle of the there is a fade that then turns into a young women's face to the left side of the picture. The woman seems to be very young and the expression she has on her face is that of a tired terrified women full of regret and sorrow. By looking at the young girl face one can tell that she’s gone through a lot of pain and is recently in a lot of pain in the photograph. The look in her eyes seems like those of a sad puppy.
The second art piece I chose to portray is untitled and presents a naked woman surrounded by mountains, cliffs and rocks of all types. Her body from the chest down dissolves into what appears to be a fresh river of running water that runs through the mountains in a long rocky river path just rolls down like a water fall. I really liked this picture because in a way it exerts a refreshing feeling of peace and comfort with oneself body and mind. The woman is lying backward resting her head back and her shoulders her arms and hands are spread out from each other and just relaxing she has her left arm out and bent so that her hand rests lying next to the top of her head. Her other right arm is just lying on her shoulder bent at the elbow so that it just lies there. Both of her hand palms are facing up with her fingers slightly bent over them she carries a light smile of comfort and her eyes are closed. the simple fact that she is naked to me symbolizes rebirth just how a baby is born naked refreshed as if just coming out from a refreshing shower because she is just out revealing her breasts it shows freedom of women she is free to reveal her body without being afraid of what others may or may not think of her, the river to me show purity, purity in water purity in the soul a new day of life a human being must drink water everyday to survive and life a healthy life. The water looks light and fresh you can drink from it and it's full of waves crushing and rushing through the Rocky Mountains. The rocks and mountains to me show toughness the women must be feeling.
The third and final master piece that I was amazed by and chose to write about from Jerry Uelsmann art works was the second untitled photo that features a miniature sized man standing on what appears to be a small white book laying on an bigger sized map and the man on the on the map are all on top of an enormous table, inside a room that appears to be a small office type library area. The most impressive and beautiful part that really just captured my eye sight is the ceiling of the room that is the sky. A gray cloudy sky with the sun popping up from the left side of the scene is what creates its beauty and peace. The room looks like that of an awfully elegant room the rug looks very beautiful and takes up almost the whole wooden floor only on the edges is where the wooden floor can be seen a little. on the right side of the photo there sits a fire place with no fire only blocks of wood over the fire place is a decorative what seems to be plate just hanging on the wooden wall on this part you can see there's a lot of light from the sun's rays. beside this to the far front there is a medium sized table with what seems to be a decorative vase with fake flowers in it, on the wooden wall that stands behind the table and vase hangs a mirror where you can see the vase' reflection. To the further end you can see a door that appears to be the entrance to the room it’s closed and has a beautiful hand crafted design to it.
After looking at Willem de Kooning’s works I have managed to pick out a painting called Legend and Fact, it was painted in 1940. The painting is broken up into four pieces that connect with each other. The reason I have chosen this panting is because, when one looks at it, the painting tells a story. The painting over roll color is blanched almond and corn silk and it’s very detailed, the stone stones on the ground and every large object have shadows, the shadows blend in with the ground well, it looks so real and painting is probably very smooth because there are bristle lines. The rope can be seen clearly. The ripped pages of the black and white books can be see well, there are cracks and damaged areas in the piece of slate grey dark-blurywood colored wooden wall. The painting is realistic even if considered surrealism.
1940 was one of the first years of world war two and before that there was a depression that was caused due to the stock markets in America crashing, the depression caused economical and social crisis and unemployment. Along with the depression there was a dust bowl that dried up every thing and caused a drought and people abandoned town, they became ghost towns with no life but just dry waste lands. And when one looks at the painting, the environment in the painting very is dry with no life, there are no plants but just dry land that looks like a desert and has no support for life. The painting is really bright and the shadows of the objects can be seen on the ground, so probably there is a lot of sunlight or maybe its just coming to sunset and that’s why the background of the painting has a greater contrast of sunlight more than in the front. And if one looks at the sky in the panting, there are many white clouds but no dark ones, thus there will not be any rainfall, which displays that maybe the place is undergoing a drought. Then in the painting, in the second piece there is a slate grey dark sphere that is sitting in a goldenrod dark wooden or metal stand and the sphere looks like a globe with a black star at the top of its north pole, maybe the black star is the sun of the globe. And since it is black, it might mean that days of light or good are over and its time for darkness or evil and since the painting was made in 1940 while World War II was taking place, it might symbolize that at that time some where in the world people were facing evil. For example the Jews and Gypsies that took part in the Holocaust. Then there is a steel blue strip in the back and that is the water, so the water looks like it a river but it’s an ocean. If it was a river, there would fresh water which would help in creation of life that would be green plants and grass covering the waste land. But it’s an ocean with salt water, which is not good support for life. And if one looks at the objects very carefully, they will realize that all the objects are part of a wrecked ship, meaning that maybe that was a ship. First there is a rusty anchor in the color of blanched almond and slate grey dark at the none-rusted part and the bottom tip of it buried in the ground. There is a slate grey dark rope hanging at the top and at the side of the anchor and as we know anchors are only found with ships. Then there is a slate grey dark gyroscope and it’s used to measure the angular position usually in the old fashioned ships with a black and white book on the ground that looks like a traveler’s guide or a journal. Then there is a slate grey dark sphere that is sitting in a goldenrod dark stand that looks like a globe and maybe its model of the world, which was usually found in ships because they were used as maps. Then there is a wooden wall in the next piece of the painting with wooden paddles leaning on it, so maybe the wooden wall was part of the wrecked ship and there are all so paddles with it that were used to move the ship. Then in the next piece of the painting there is a slate grey dark- blanched almond woman statue attached onto a wooden piece and this is the front of the ship because ships then had figures and statues at the front. If a few changes are made to the statue by raising her right arm with a torch in it and giving her a crown and a book in the other arm, she will almost look like the statue of liberty. Then when one looks at the painting its all connected because there is gyroscope piece that connects from the first piece of the painting to the next, then the globe connects from the second piece to the third piece of the painting, and then the wooden walls that are parts of the ship connect to each other in the third and fourth pieces of the painting. And through the painting there is a rope that moving through the pieces to connect them, but it appears go behind the wooden walls of the ship and its not seen in the door in the wall as the river is seen behind it, so what happens to the rope, does it end or go around the top where it can not be seen. One might wonder if its is really a ship, then maybe the place is not a waste land or a desert but just a beach and why would the ship be on shore and not in the ocean, may be the shore slowly moved over the years and started to shallow that water and expanded till it met the ship and kept on expanding.
Kristen S P_7
For my artist Sandy Skoglund, I choose two separate portraits from her section of artwork name “True fiction 2004”& “images 1996_2003”. The first portrait that had caught my eye is titled “Errors of the efficient mind” and I found it in “True fiction 2004”. Efficient being performing or functioning in the best possible manner etc. This picture perfectly displays a deeper meaning along with a simple meaning to the efficient working. What is quickly evident is that the scenery is a small working office, by the several filing cabinets’, desks, and the set up on the office in general. The somewhat neon colors along with the look of a distracted work office is the most visible thing at first. There is a women wearing a yellow shirt, she was the first to appear to my eyes. She’s in the left side of the photo tightly holding a red phone just a little bit below her mouth with her eyes looking off to what could be seen as the front of the room with her eyebrows raised. It seems germane that she is a secretary and is aggravated ( by the way she’s griping the phone) and distracted of the caller through her facial expression. Slightly off the the right and below her are folders filed by letter in a position were they are open in the middle, Because of the off coloring of the photo the tags are a very distinct color turquoise which could be significant to the idea the work having to be done. By the opening within the file it is almost like there is an invisible person spreading a document open, as if its an allusion of the workers searching for a specific document. What also quickly appeared to me was the bracelet on the right side of the women talking on the phone, It seems as though it is beaded or band like with orange and yellow in the middle. Due to the fact the the band is so distinct I was curious of the deeper meaning behind it, if there was one. This photograph is very distracting looking, and has several different things going on at once, including the three people two men and the one women. All of the people seem to be looking away from what they are supposed to be doing, yet there is a man in the back on the photo that also caught my eye. When I look closer at the person who seems to be faded in the background, its difficult to differentiate whether it is a man with a puffy short hair style or a women. Like all of the other character she is looking away from what her hands seem to be occupied, yet all three of the people are looking into different directions. The person fading into the background with a table in front of them, dressed in what seems to be a bluish- grayish one piece jumpsuit is staring into the left side of he portrait. Her facial expression seems a though she is just peering to see what is going on , not so much expression is shown on her face. Behind the women in the jumpsuit there is a stone wall backdrop and it is evident that the ceilings are low in the room because the lights and what looks like a fan in the back middle of the room is appearing very close to her head. There seems to be a thick system in the back, maybe a electric system because there is no lights on it and the lighting in the room is a rectangle shaped light that goes on the left and right side of the ceiling in a horizontal way. Due to the busy look in the picture and the several different things going on, the man in the right side of the photo seemed to stick out. I’m guessing he is either a boss or maybe even an electrician, judging by his outfit being a turquoise collared shirt (similar to what I would assume an electrician would wear) and his turquoise hat. His hand is positioned in a way that he looks like he is talking to someone, by his finger being pointed toward the right side of the photo I’m assuming that he is talking to the women in the background, maybe even telling he to get back to work. Yet he could also be not so much in a powerful position because his facial hair again gives the look of what I picture someone working on something in the office rather than actually being employed there. What is also significant in this picture is the way that the women on the phone and he man pointing his finger are in bright colors while the women in the back is in a dark grey, which is ironic because the whole picture is very bright. This gives me the idea that she is not an important part of the picture, and the way that her area in the back is also a darker color compared to the front of the picture being so bright.
My second picture of choice from Skoglunds photographs is titled “raining popcorn” and can be found in her “images 1996_2003” section. I found this picture to be the simplest looking picture I had seen out of her images so far. This portrait seemed to stick to a few basic colors, rather then the neon and bright colors that I had seen in a majority of her picture in the “True fiction 2004” section. I also thought that it was ironic how her pictures in this section seemed to be more color themed, as compared to her newer photographs that had more of a random color scheme. To begin with the picture had a few basic colors brown, orange, tan and an overwhelming amount of white. Like said in the title there was popcorn everywhere, yet it looked more like a snow storm rather than rain. The background of the picture seemed to be the most plain of all, with just a fading white and popcorn falling from the sky, similar to how it would be looking into an open space on a snow storm & just seeing the snow falling rather than anything else. The most significant parts of the picture is the two trees on opposite sides of the picture, one brown tree (without leaves) standing straight up on the left side with popcorn sprinkled on the parts of the branches which begin in the middle of the tree. Ironically there is a tree on the opposite side of the photo that is a little larger and is leaving to the left. Like the previous picture there are also several people in this picture, there’s a young man carrying a also young women, an older man sitting near a fire and what looks like two sculptures of people sitting near the fire one on a bench and one on the floor. Beside the people in the picture there is what looks like a wolf behind the tree on the left side. It is completely covered in popcorn, which to me reminds me of a place in Hawaii were there was so much ash coming from a volcano that it had killed people living there and there bodies were actually kept in place and still remain there today. This is because it looks like the wolf had been in action yet was frozen in place by the popcorn, it actually looks as is it is following the young couple by the way that it is frozen walking directly behind them. It also looks as though there is a grin on his face by the way his mouth is shaded and his ears are sticking up. The young couple also on the right side of the photo is not covered in popcorn at all, they are both wearing white outfits which exposes there hands, and face. It seems as though by the way that the man is carrying the women that she is in distraught or in a position were she can’t walk anymore. Her body language being he head tilted to the right and her arms and legs just dangling from his grip show her weakness. Its ionic how the women has blonde hair and a pale face and the man had darker hair and a reddish face, which could be from him carrying her maybe even for a while now and his body working. It’s clear that the women had not been walking for a while because her face is pale, yet she does not look dead because her eyes look like there gazing to the right. Below the couple there is an older white man, with gray hair on top that fades to a dark brown and a large bolding spot on the top of his head. Like the couple h is also wearing a white outfit yet he looks as though he is exhausted by the way he is also red. The way he is sitting shows that he is taking what seems like a break or relaxing by the fire, he is sitting and leaning on his right arm to the side, with his left arm placed over his knee as if he had hurt it. The older man evidently is looking toward what seems to be either a frozen person or a sculpture sitting on a bench to the right of him. The sculpture is leaving forward as he sits with his hand on his thighs, it looks as thought it is a man because there’s no sign of longer hair and the form seems to be more masculine. Across from the man on what seems to be a bench there is another sculpture like person, also completely covered in popcorn. It is evident that is looks like a women because the figure is much more petite looking and smaller in general. This covered person is also sitting with legs together the right one further out and arms by their stomach and the right foot pointing up. In the middle of the three people sitting there is what looks like a fire, light by sticks. The significance to this fire is that it is a bright orange in the middle, looking like the popcorn has vaguely stayed on it. The fire is in a cone shape followed by skinny twigs following it in a upward direction and meeting in the middle. It somewhat resembles what looks like a teepee. Above the fire is the tree on the left side of the photo, yet it looks as it the tree is folding into the fire like it is being melted toward it slowly.
Jason Huynh
English
Per.7 Jerry Uelsmann’s work1000words
Jerry Uelsmann is an artist that creates images through photography and working with negatives to blend pictures in to make one image. The first image I want to talk about is the tree house. This is one of my favorite works of art by Jerry uelsmann. He blends in the image well enough to make it seem almost like a real image. Not only does the image look real but it also tells a story. The house on the tree stump is significant because it means that the house has a strong root or a strong foundation. The picture that he focuses on is always black and white and lacks color. The other houses in the background of this image seem to be normal and do not have the bottom of a tree for its base. Just one house that stands out with windows and a tree stump. The roots seem to be old as well as the house. The sky in the image does not seem very clear. It does not seem lucid and the sky seems almost to be covered in array of clouds in a deeper color. This image has no steps leading down from the door to the ground. This may symbolize a bad dream. There are no people in sight, all houses. There are leaves on the ground maybe symbolizing that it is in the fall time. The windows of the house seem to be broken and pieces falling out. The color through the windows is pitch black which means it is not visible. The houses behind the house on the tree stump seem normal. And the house focuses on three windows much like the other image “approaching storm” which consists of a house with three doors. This is significant because this house is like an unknown house with no entrance. The door may be the entrance but there is no way to get to the door. On the left window of the three there seems to be a white stick falling across. This image done by Jerry Uelsmann overall is one of my favorite pieces of art done by him.
Jerry Uelsmann’s image cover of approaching storm in 1982 has a lot of meaning to it. All done in black and white with a huge symbolic circle in the air. There is also a man under the circle towards the left side. The ball casts a shadow that appears to be rather large. The house under the circle seems to be in an Asian style entrance. The image creates a view point from looking through the door or a pathway that leads you into another world. A world with the sun and trees. The title is called approaching the storm. It is ironic how the name is of an approaching storm yet the ball in the sky casts a shadow so large which means there’s the sun in the sky. Maybe the circle or sun in the air can symbolize the storm as it gets closer and is approaching and the man is entering the home. In most of Jerry Uelsmann’s art work he uses the same images to create a different picture usually focusing on dreams, a man, a house, a ball. The ball or circle in the sky may even be symbolizing the eye watching over him or protecting the man in this image. Again in this image like his last one, there does not seem to be any visible stairs to enter in. The entrance of the place seems rather large and the house back there in the picture consists of three doors. The circle in the sky is no the sun because the sun cannot possibly cast a shadow on itself. Which I find fascinating that Jerry did this.
In this third image is a man standing on clouds looking at an old colonial style home. There is a different view to this image. It is through the hands of somebody else which is very symbolic. Usually when a person holds up water in there hands, it signifies the reflection and themselves. This image focuses on the second person to view it through Jerry’s hands. This image may be symbolizing one of Jerry Uelsmann’s dreams. The dream which focuses on the house similar to his first artwork and a nude man standing in the clouds looking a little lost. Jerry Uelsmann focuses on the colonial style home that seems unknown with the doors shut and the windows dark with plants surrounding it. The trees around the house seem to be growing on the clouds. Jerry is very professional with every little detail for instance the light casting on the mans shoulders. Not only does Jerry create the light on the mans shoulders but he also casts light on the clouds which I find amazing. The image is inside person’s hands and cannot be seen if it is not in the outline of the persons hands. This symbolizes that it is a dream and nobody can see it except the person dreaming. The art done by Jerry seems real and t is amazing because Jerry does this all by multiples of negatives. The clouds and the naked man symbolize a dream. If you look closely to the little details of the images, you can notice that the naked man has a light casting on him which is the sun that cannot be seen.
Jerry Uelsmann considers one of the top masters of photographers blends his creative and dreamy mind together to create masterpieces with meaning behind the images. Jerry focuses his artwork on the same things and in these three images they are all focusing on a house and a dream. The images created by him is fascinating because he does it all by hand by sing multiple of negatives. The artwork done can be easily done today by programs on the computer like adobe but back n Jerry’s time, this image was very difficult to make real. That is why Jerry is considered the top ten masters of photographers in the world. He is considered a great photographer, and artists.
I am chosen two special series “Picture of Junk” and “Picture of Pigment” which Muniz did at 2006. For the series of junk, I chose the picture Narcissus, after Caravaggio. This is a large scale photograph made by many junk, old fridges, tires, bottles, industrial waste, car doors and bolts but all those materials looked tiny in the pictures, because this photograph was take from high above. The background of the image is build by putting junks randomly, and leaves white spaces to outstanding the main objects. By looking at the picture the image seems has a fine line in the middle of it and divide into top part and bottom part. The objects of the picture is two men that facing each other. On the top part of the picture is like a man put his hands on the edge of the river and looking down to the water, and the bottom part inverted reflection in water like mirror. The materials that used in the top part’s background are mostly have larger values and more randomly. So the top part seems have more space and can figured out what kind of junks clearly. The men are stand at the center. The man at the top part can clearly see it’s the original man, because the emotion of his face, the shape, and the values of the man has more detail and narrowly. The lines of the face, eyes, mouth, and the ear are clearly seemed, the brightness and darkness of the cloth, and hands are so clear. The shadows are made by putting many tiny dark values material so tightly so it doesn’t seem made by different materials. The bottom part of the image is the reflection of the top part, they are parallel. The background of the bottom part has two layers. The first layer is mix by many small junks and cans loosely, and then the second layer are some larger materials stay close to the fine line. The image of the reflection man has less detail and only has the basic line of the shapes. The shadows are made by some bigger dark objects that stand one by one. The sizes of the materials that used in the top part and bottom part are opposite. The materials in the background of top part have larger size and the shape of the man are used small materials and tightly so we can see it’s which is back and which is front. The materials size in the bottom part get smaller from the fine line, and the materials size for the reflection man also get smaller and intermix with the background. The bottom part just like the reflection of the water, the closer to the image has more detail and clear and get cloudy and dim as far from the image.
In the series of “Picture of Pigment” I chose the painting Death and life, after Klimt. This is a colorful abstract painting that leaves my mind deep impression. The color of the painting has obvious comparison. The left side is the darker colors and the right side is colorful and has most brighten colors. There is a skull and wear long robe and holding stick. The colors of the robe are black, violet, and many dark colors and background of the left side used dim colors. The skull and black are always significant evil, hell and death. By looking at the whole image of left side, it seems like the devil comes in a black, quiet night. There are many special patterns in the robe. The patterns basically made up by many crosses and circles. The cross always represents Jesus Christ, and devils are angles that fall in sink. The color of the crosses in the painting is black, it shows the devil is against God and likes to put human into hopeless and sink. The left side have one brighten color, it’s the red stick that it hold in hands. The red color can represent warm and passion, but it also represent anger, and blood. The image in the left side is like the devil come out from a gloomy night and holding red stick to take over humans in the right side of the picture’s spirit. In the big circle of image are used many bright colors, and light up in the gloomy night so the color of the right hand side background is green to black. The patterns in the big circle looks complicated and confuse. There are many different colors’ of small circles and square and triangles. As look at the picture in some distance, the circles and squares mix together like a beautiful garden with many different colors of flowers. There is also having seven or more faces in the big circle image. Some of them might easily see but some of it has to look more clearly to find it, because some of them only have half of the face shows or doesn’t face up. The people in the circle are include man, woman, baby, and teen ages. Their eyes are all closed and looks like in a deeply sleep and peace. And some of mouths are open, some of them are smiling it seems they are having sweet dreams. The people are lean on each others like a big family sleep together in the garden. The picture like describing the religion in the ancient time, because the people in the right side didn’t wear any cloths and the green background make the image feel so nature. The title of this painting is death and life. It’s so clear that the left side of the devil is death and the right side is life. The whole picture given the idea that the devils are jealous the peace life of human and want to disrupt and take over it.
The first is called the History of Black People. In this painting there is a lot of color and also things that are going on. The theme of this painting of the history of black people is how fun and also laughter because it shows funny faces and words that bring laughter to you. In this painting there is a lot of color to show that people of color is good their not the bad people, the feeling that Jean-Michel Basquiat is color is a great thing and everyone is the same because he also touch it with the color white. The colors shown in the painting is black, tan, blue, green, yellow, white. In the painting in the left lower corner there is two people and some type of fence, one of the person is pointing to the other person and that person has his hands up like he has committed something wrong so to me it feels like how the black slaves were treated by the white people and how scared the black people were to these people that treated them very wrong. In the right lower corner of the painting there is a city and state name on it and it is Memphis, Tennesee and it actually is spelled wrong it is suppose to be Tennessee. He probably, (Basquiat) put this city and state on it because mostly all the blacks lived in the south and Tennessee is in the south. Also where it says Memphis, Tennessee in the middle of it there is also a word THEBES which it is very weird why he put that their and its not sure what he means. In that whole section of the painting there is a lot going Basquiat painted a spider and a dog which on the dog that he painted black with white painting he put a quote saying a dog guarding the pharos and when seeing this it gives a thought that he is trying to say is that the ones that are pharaohs are the white people because they were never treated like slaves or dogs so it is a symbolization of how the black people were treated. In the middle top of the painting there is also another painting with two people and one is over the fence and the other is pointing at him like he is caught or something. In the left side of the painting there are like some type of masks that were used by the black people because when the black people celebrate they make masks and other type of things meaning life and happiness for them so Basquiat was trying to put these masks in it to show some type of happiness and humor to the painting. The word sickle is brought up three times in the painting the words that he specially chooses for this painting bring meaning to it because in the painting even though it is hard to know it there is a lot of statements, examples and meanings to the painting. My take on this painting is freedom, happiness, and truth I mean by these three expressions towards the painting is that much of the painting has truthful meaning when he paints with the two people and the fence in the middle of them and one of the person is pointing the other has his hands up they were treated like dogs they were not able to do anything so that’s how they were treated no freedom. But then they show masks and just funny figures which makes me think he wanted to bring the happy side of the history of black. The name of the second painting I choose was the Worthy Constituants In the second painting the meaning of this painting is a jazz group all black and playing their music because black people is very attached to the music in the days of slavery. Also there is types of vehicles with a red T which is the symbol to health the ambulance usually have this meaning their in help. The different types of colors in this painting are yellow, blue, white, black, and red. The instruments that are being played in the painting are trumpet, and the saxophone. The meaning that brings to mind is I think he put the black people to play the instruments and the vehicles that have in need of help is that back in the days it was wrong to hear black people play instruments sing or anything so it probably it is meaning that this is wrong and that this needs to stop because this has never happen before. My conclusion towards this painting is most definitely that he is expressing the way he feels black people care about life they want to move on from all the hardships that they have gone through so music is a very understanding choice for happiness and light to the painting because black people enjoy their music and they crave it with all they have. Some black people felt that music escapes the from all the mean and cruel hardships they went through with the races situation, so Basquiat turns to music in this picture to show happiness between the four instrument players and even though there is police cars and other cars watching it really doesn’t matter because they are living their life. In my take of the painting he touches more feature towards the instrument players so his main attraction was them because the painting is just all blue but the place where there are playing is white and when I’m looking at the painting that is the first thing that catches my eye so his point towards the painting really is brought up and that’s why the painting has many meanings to it. The ending theme that was received to me with both of these paintings is many go through hardships and cruelty in their life but with this theirs always a change where you can live your life with freedom, love, happiness but you just need to fight what’s right for you.
The artist I chose to write about is David Hockney. Many of his paintings are filled with color and are very flashy. It is incredibly hard for your eyes to focus on just one thing. His paintings are so busy and many are very abstract. The three paintings I chose to write about are Large Interior, Los Angeles, 1988, A Walk Around the Hotel Courtyard, Acatlan, 1985 and The Sea At Malibu, 1988. These are three of my favorite Hockney paintings and all three are very intricate.
In the first painting, Large Interior, the first thing I noticed was that there are a large number of chairs in the painting. The painting is of the living room and kitchen of what appears to be an apartment. You can see a patio area in the back of the painting as well. I immediately feel a sense of relaxation when I look at this piece. I think Hockney was trying to set a feeling of home while painting this. After a hard day or a long dilemma there is nothing better than coming home and plopping down in your favorite chair or your favorite spot on the couch and that is the feeling David Hockney is trying to express in this painting.
Starting at the left of the painting there is a large light grey wall with a fire place. The wall has shelves built into it. The upper most part of the wall is a dark grey as though it is in shadow. On the top shelf built into the wall there is a black statue of a someone’s head and neck. There isn’t enough detail to tell who it is or even if it is male or female. The next shelf down has some kind of art work. It is white with grey indents of abstract shapes. Below that shelf is a black fire place with white and grey designs carved into it. A royal blue carpet stretches right up to the wall with the fireplace. On the royal blue carpet are three chairs. One chair is a white arm chair with light blue lines and red dots as designs. This chair is kind of close to the fire place. The other chair is a wide, tan arm chair with brown squiggly lines on it. This chair looks big and comfortable. This chair is a little bit further away from the fireplace than the white chair. The third chair is a long red chair that you could sit up in and also stretch you legs out. Once the blue carpet stops the whole rest of the room is covered in light brown hardwood floors. Behind the carpet area is a black piano near a patio area and plants on the outside ground. The ground outside is a deep yellow. The ceiling in this painting is the most interesting part of the whole painting. There are many different designs in the ceiling and the colors are very different. Brown, tan, red, orange, white with polka dots, grey and yellow are a few colors in the ceiling. To the right of the painting is what looks like a kitchen area. This area is darker than the rest of the painting. There is a little window in this area that does not seem to be shedding any light. The counters are tan and brown with teal green tops. There are many different colored chairs and tables and other furniture scattered throughout the painting.
The next painting I chose to write about is, A Walk Around the Hotel Courtyard. The first thing I noticed about this painting is a big salmon colored arch in the very center of the court yard. This painting also has a sense of relaxation. Looking at this painting makes me feel like I am on vacation. Once again this painting is kind of abstract. The painting is of a hotel hallway attached to a courtyard. The hallways walls are multi-colored; the red, blue and yellow stands out to me the most but there are many more colors in the walls. All the doorways in the hallway are dark which makes you focus more attention to the center of the painting that is really bright. The hallway carpet is a crimson red and there are many golden yellow columns supporting the dark red and blue ceiling. There are a few black tables and chairs scattered throughout the hallway and all some potted plants. The pots that the plants are in are a light red almost pink. Beyond the hallway, in the courtyard are several trees. All the tress are different shades or brown and green and one actually has pink bark. The pink bark kind of looks like a pair of legs and feet to me. There is light green grass with many paths in the courtyard. The paths don’t seem to have any specific pattern and all are not entirely straight. At the center of the courtyard is a salmon colored arch.
The last painting I chose is called, The Sea At Malibu. This painting is extremely abstract. My eyes are immediately drawn to the sea part of the painting. I think Hockney had more of a turbulent idea going on while painting this piece. The ocean seems very fierce there are a lot of deep blues, dark greens and whites in the water. The water is painted just like ordinary water however. There are many abstract shapes that resemble waves. The waves are very large and seem like they are violent. Some of the waves look more like giant mountains than water. One of the waves looks like a dark blue pyramid. The sky is light blue and has many dark blue and white clouds in it. There seems to be a strip of land at the bottom center of the painting. Part of the land resembles stairs and is in dark shadow. The rest seems to be lit well. The land contains three structures that look like disfigured cylinders.
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