Waterfall No. 1 Georgia O’Keefes painting Waterfall No.1 was one of three paintings she devoted to depict a waterfall near the Lao Valley in Hawaii. This one like the rest of them were all done on a white canvas with oil paints. The canvas came about when O’keefe visited Hawaii in 1939 and like the name suggests it is a depiction of a beautiful waterfall. This was new territory for O’keefe when she painted this, as she was most famous for depictions of the arid southwest. The lush tropical sights of Hawaii were a completely opposite compared to her previous pieces. The massive nature of the mountains in this painting, the thin white stream of the water fall, are all set with a sense of design and have a pizzazz which brings us the feeling
The shapes that underlie this composition are also suggestive of the female sexuality, which brings forth the notion of “Mother Nature”. I went and saw this piece at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art where Gift of Art placed it there. The piece is originally located in the estate of Georgia O’Keeffe in New York, New York. This painting of the waterfall is a fresh and virginal take on one of the world’s most natural beauties. Being born and raised in Mississippi, I know the impact landscapes can have on the human appeal, since it is a mostly rural area natural landscapes are found almost everywhere. The waterfall, the mountains, the clouds and the greenery in the painting create a strong connection between the person and nature, a connection that is rarely found today in our modern tech savvy world. In her painting it is as if she could describe exactly what she was feeling when viewing this waterfall in Hawaii and captured it beautifully. Looking at the painting we can easily detect the lines used, there are many curvy lines present in the mountains and the waterfall. There were also
This oil painting is an explosion of vibrant lush colors on a vast canvas, lending a captivating effect. O 'Keefe used rich greens and blues as the main color of the greenery and sky. “Waterfall No. 1” looks like a close up photograph of a majestic landscape. The absence of “context” in the painting presents the clouds in a new light as pure abstract. Since this painting has emphasis, it also has scale. One can see that the mountains take up huge amounts of space in the forefront which capture the massive size of the mountains in real life . Now if we look at the texture, the whole painting, every single bit of it, seems like it is very smooth compared to other oil painting, which sometimes have a fresco look with the oil paint looking plastered on the canvas. This painting to me seems like it is trying to show that the small waterfall is still as massive and as important and significant as the huge mountains in the forefront. This is achieved by having the mountains take up a lot of space but the focal point when you look at the painting being focused on the center on the
This work shows impeccably drawn beech and basswood trees. It was painted for a New York collector by the name of Abraham M. Cozzens who was then a member of the executive committee of the American Art-Union. The painting shows a new trend in the work of the Hudson River School. It depicts a scene showing a tranquil mood. Durand was influenced by the work of the English landscape painter John Constable, whose vertical formats and truth to nature he absorbed while visiting England in 1840.
The Appalachian Mountains in the nineteenth century landscapes are often depicted in a grand, glorious, and often spiritually uplifting form. The Hudson River School artists painting in the romantic style engages viewers to tell a story through naturally occurring images as well as interior knowledge of the times at hand.
Starting with visual elements I saw lines, implied depth, and texture. I see lines by him using lines created by an edge. Each line is curved not straight but it works with the piece. By using this he creates the piece to make it whole. He uses many curved lines within the painting I don’t know if there is a straight line in the whole thing. The next element I saw was implied depth. Using linear perspective you can see the mountains but they look smaller than the rest of the piece. They are the vanishing point in the back making it look as if you can walk down and they will get closer and closer to you. The last element that I saw was texture. They talk about Van Gogh’s painting, The Starry Night having texture through a two- dimensional surface, in which this painting has that similar feel. Van Gogh uses thick brush stokes on his paintings to show his feelings. There is actually a name for this called, Impasto,
From the foot of a creek, Barret allows the viewer to witness the rolling hills of a countryside. And although there are natural landmarks presented in the work, it may not be possible to identify where the hills are located. Making the painting more of a representation than a depiction of the muse. This too may be why the artist chose to leave the piece untitled rather than placing an unrelated or weak title. Did Barret categorize his piece as a “landscape” or did the curator? The end goal of the piece was to do just that, form a landscape that is pleasant for the mind’s eye. At play with regular western landscape motifs Barret paints both shimmers of luminous blue light shinning through calm clouds and darker, more sinister clouds of which inhabit the corner. The experience is “totalized” as one scene for the viewer to see the landscape as nature (Andrews 18, Meinig 1). Barret plays to the audience’s susceptibility to see the scene as natural habitat. The brightest section of the painting, the foreground uses earthier green tones to balance the brighter yellows of the grass. Employing complementary colors, the artist uses the color scheme to allure the viewer. The middle ground itself is se...
There is a lot of repetition of the vertical lines of the forest in the background of the painting, these vertical lines draw the eye up into the clouds and the sky. These repeated vertical lines contrast harshly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, is quite static and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have quite a lot of depth. This static effect is made up for in the immaculate amount of d...
The right side is almost purely white, with blue and gray shadows; the rest of the body is black, dark brown, and navy. The profile of a white woman obscures the left half of the black face, facing to the right of the piece; her hair is in a large braid and she wears a simple pearl earring. The black woman has long, flowing, bright blue hair, as well as full red lips. The black woman’s body has a rose over it, and the white woman is wearing what looks like a straw bikini; the figure is wrapped in a thick rope from the waist down. The stark contrast between the white and black meet with a definitive line; there is no blending between the two colors, which amplifies the feelings of separation and difference between the two halves of the woman’s
Thomas Moran’s painting captures the essence of the true spirit of the Yellowstone Canyon and overwhelms any viewers who go up to it. With a size of 7’ by 12’ and a mastery display of vivid colors with hues of orange and yellow contrasted with the dark cold colors of the shadows, anyone would be overwhelmed. Under the cool shade, the path extending in front invites the viewer to join the tiny figures in the distance who seem to overlook the grand valley of the canyon below. The view from where those people are in the distance could be quite breathtaking, and this adds to the painting’s value. Moran captured the public and the government’s fascinations with the beauties of America’s Wild West. Moran’s mastery of composition within landscape
Georgia O’Keeffe is an artist known for her paints of flowers, skyscrapers, and landscapes from New York. She is recognized as the mother of American modernism. Georgia O’Keeffe has always been a name I remember from my art classes in middle school. We had to talk about a piece of art in class each week and I kept finding myself doing her paintings. The way she uses color and the detail of her flowers is so perfect. The reason I chose to do Georgia O’Keeffe is she is a well-known artist and when think of art, I think of her. I have always thought of Georgia as interesting artist. Not being much of an art guy, something about her paintings makes me interested in her work. I like that she is so simply with her work and she paints very beautiful pieces of work, I’m excited to look more into her work, and get to learn a little more about art. I feel like I hear this quote a lot connected with art, O’Keeffe says many times through out her life “ I found that I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way----things I had no words for.”
Artists are masters of manipulation. They create unimaginably realistic works of art by using tools, be it a paintbrush or a chisel as vehicles for their imagination to convey certain emotions or thoughts. Olympia, by Manet and Bierstadt’s Sierra Nevada Mountains both are mid nineteenth century paintings that provide the viewer with different levels of domain over the subject.
...hese repeated vertical lines contrast firmly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, seems unchanging and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have a lot of depth to them.
The second painting was by George W. Bellows and named Shoghead. This painting brought a sense of ease and relaxation. I can picture myself on the top of the mountain listening to the waves crash on the sides. The open countryside topped by the clouds give the painting a sense of realism. The extremely bright blue water stands out the most, though the focal point is not clear. There is not an excessive use of paint. It is as if Bellows caked it on his brush and made quick short strokes. The use of such dark colors on the hill is a mystery. The terrain has a roughness that makes the painting come to life. The artist did a great job of showing the depth. If I had to guess, he was influenced by Picasso’s work because of the extensive use of thick point.
Images inspired by Diamant’s work flooded my conscious. Perhaps I was experiencing flashes of my rememory, my collective unconscious coming to life on the paper in front of me. However, it was not just The Red Tent providing me with stimulation, but other works such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, Mary Oliver’s “The Fish,” Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” and The Book of Genesis. Each work embodied themes of childbirth and motherhood to self-love and social standing, in which I could find connections that affected me creatively. Aesthetically, I intended my visual art to be full and consistent in texture and fecund in my use of sensuous lines. My hope is to celebrate women and the strength that comes from battling adversity, challenge, victimization and in actualizing the power of childbirth. In all of these works, a connection is made: these are stories of women that need to be remembered and cel...
...f the shadows is sprinkled with the orange of the ground, and the blue-violet of the mountains is both mixed with and adjacent to the yellow of the sky. The brushstrokes that carry this out are inspired by the Impressionists, but are more abundant and blunter than those an Impressionist would use.
Of all the Impressionist artists, it is Pierre Auguste Renoir who is most interested in painting humans and studying the portrayal of human emotions. Renoir’s technique of broken brush strokes was combined with brash colours to portray the light and movement of the subject. He was greatly inspired to paint figures, particularly of women. Renoir succeeded in assembling several figures in one frame and his compositions were complex and demanded several revisions. In the 1880s Pierre-Auguste Renoir sought to move his art beyond Impressionism and to forge a link between modern art and the classical tradition of French painting from the Renaissance period. The result was this large-scale composition of nude bathers, which occupied much of his attention for three years. This work is unique in the history of modern painting for their representation of feminine grace, and they show Renoir’s ability to capture the soft and pearly texture of skin. Even though his figures in “The large Bathers” do not follow the impressionist style of broken brush strokes, the landscape in this painting seems looks like an impressionist landscape.
...rivers of paint rush across the dark black ground, creating writhing intertwining shapes that suggest figures in a landscape setting, but without any specificity whatsoever.