The Cosmic White Whale was painted in c 1976-1977 by Gilbert Brown Wilson. It is comprised of mixed media on panel. By examining the piece with formal evaluation, the purpose of this piece is found to be comantarry. The artist made the comparison of Moby Dick to a microcosm of the universe. He also found similarities between Moby Dick and the atomic bomb, hence the atomic symbol. Three dominate elements of design in The Cosmic White Whale are color, shape, and texture. Three dominant principle of design in this piece is focal point, contrast and similarity, and unity.
The colors of the piece are predominantly black, white, and cool tones: blue, purple, and a touch of green. The colors are drawn from the colors of a galaxy. Without these colors, the artist would have trouble conveying the connection of the work to a microcosm of the universe. The color also gives a calm and serene aspect, which relates well to the gentle giant whale. The touches of warm colors, orange and yellow, add variety and balance to the piece.
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The majority are organic:paints splatters, the galaxy swirl, and the whale. The use of geometric shapes contrasting with the organic shapes helps bring the whale forward and give it emphasis in the piece. This technique also adds depth to the background. Making the whale appear as if he is swimming thru not only the galaxy but also ice covered in snow.The atomic symbol, a geometric shape, also contrasts with the surrounding organic shapes giving emphasis to the connection of Moby Dick to the atomic bomb. Without the contrast of geometric and organic shapes the piece would blend together more and be difficult to decipher what the artist was going
Blue is used to represent the water as well as the sky and both similar and range in different tones. All of the colors in this piece are washed out but still have a bright quality to them. The colors aren’t brightly pigmented however; Hiroshige does a satisfying job of drawing in the viewer with the color choices used and the little details. The sun in the sky is simply the white of the paper and almost looks as if the color burns through. Pops of red, show in blocks on the right side of the work wit Japanese writing inside each one, which contrasts with the large amounts of blue and helps the writing stand out.
The visual elements in this painting are shape, color and light. The shapes and contours of the mother and child are life like.
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,
At first glance, the cheerful bright blue sky on the upper portion of the painting caught the most attention. The second dominant feature is the small sailboat with seagulls on the background where Monet illustrated in brightest white. Examining closely in that particular area, it is noticeable that the artist intended to incorporate a sheer layer of white surrounding the sailboat to create the illusion of sheen light breaking through the clouds and reflecting into the ocean. Monet used a variation of values along with the combination of heavy and light individual brushstrokes to create uneven tones to show the movement of the water caused by the weather and the sun. Several layers of underpaint can also be seen as the artist’s intention for the waves to appear fuzzier. The fuzzy wave in the foreground to the right is slightly bulged from the canvas showing the finer brushstroke slightly dabbed on the surface. Dense cracking is present all over the painting possibly due to the painting being very
The colors in the figure’s face consist of warm colors of red, yellow, green while the rest of the body consist of primary colors of yellow, blue, red along with seafoam green, white, and pink. However, the colors are mixed from one to another to create depth. To illustrate this, a viewer would focus on the figure’s right leg because of the luminous yellow and then to the soft sea green foam, which makes the yellow closer to the viewer, whereas the sea foam green is in the back, creating depth. In addition, the simplified forms such as the red triangle on the bottom right also helps separate the yellow and the sea foam green, which reinforces that they split to show depth. In addition, the two red dots, the triangle, the red on the face, and red on the arm also reinforces the viewer to look at the whole piece. Overall, Brown use specific colors around the drawing to make sure the viewer look at it as a whole rather than just looking at one
My greatest attention grabber from this figure is the color; vibrant bluish tones remind me of the ocean. The use of cool colors on the whole figure creates unity. The surface color is mostly in the cool hues of blue, but not in its normal value; it may have some green mixed in with it. Furthermore, the bluish shade symbolizes the color of Nile
The colours used in the artwork are earthy tones with various browns, greens, yellows, blues and some violet. These colours create a sense of harmony on the...
From the beginning, the four characters in the aftermath of a shipwreck do not know "the colour of the sky" but all of them know "the colours of the sea." This opening strongly suggests the symbolic situations in which human beings are located in the universe. The sky personifies the mysterious, inconceivable cause of reality , which humans cannot understand, and the sea symbolizes the earthy, mundane phenomenon, which humans are supposed to perceive. The symbolic picture generated by the above conflict implies the overall relationship between the individual and nature. In fact, the daily life of human beings is at the mercy of the uncontrollable waves of the sea; while, at the same time, the essential part of reality remains unknown to feeble, helpless humans.
He then brings the elements together and purposefully and successfully uses movement to get the viewer’s attention within the sculpture. As the sculpture is moved by the air it is never in the same exact position gaining attention from the viewer, and creating an abstract and exciting piece. He also successfully uses the principle of proportion to draw the viewer’s eyes in a certain direction, giving the piece a nice flow and pleasing to the eyes. The organic shapes on the metal branches get smaller towards the end of the piece. The change in proportion makes the viewers eye glide from the large parts to the smaller parts of the
...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.
For the subject of my visual analysis, I have chosen Yves Tanguy’s Untitled—an oil on canvas Surrealist painting, produced in 1937. This piece, though neither its subject nor its intent is entirely apparent, was painted with astounding precision in primarily cool grays, blues, and greens. It appears to depict a desolate, gray beach, surrounded by swirling winds and a spraying sea. The beach appears to be littered with several small, bizarre, and unidentifiable metallic objects—a distorted mask and an ebbing ship’s mast remain the only discernible objects present throughout the entire piece. While a storm is clearly raging directly offshore, the beach appears entirely untouched by the forceful winds—though, each of the objects strewn about
The morphology of whale sharks is mostly similar to aquatic fish species, but many specific traits help differentiate them from the rest. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world and can reach a size of around 20 meters (Martins, C., and C. Knickle). This is often compared to the size of a school bus. The shark has a very large transverse mouth. They have 5 very large gill slits and have a larger first dorsal fin compared to the second one (Whale Shark). They have a distinctive spotted “checkerboard” pattern with stripes (Martins, C., and C. Knickle). It is not exactly known why they have this specific body marking. It is believed that the body markings act as a camouflage. The strange thing about whale sharks is that they have 300 rows of teeth that play no role in feeding (Martins, C., and C. Knickle).
When speaking about color we have to recognize that they’re categorized into “primary colors red, yellow and blue and also three secondary color are orange, green, and violet”1. As shown in Goya’s work yellow is used to highlight the Spaniards. The protagonist is shown wearing yellow as well as another man laying dead besides the doomed onlookers. Goya’s use of yellow as the primary color has an overwhelming influence to direct the viewers eyes. This is one of the first things I noticed when I began to examine the painting myself. Our eyes are drawn to these figures even more as th...
In art, color is a very vivid element that attracts the audience’s attention, and allow us to think deeply about our innermost feelings. Van Gogh’s use of light and dark colors used in the night sky provide great contrast in order to capture our attention. The darker blue gives the art a gloomy feeling and could perhaps represent isolation. The lighter blue helps to draw attention to the swirls that Van Gogh made in the sky. The yellow accentuates the swirls even more because it is the brightest color found in the art piece. Blue and
In regards to first impressions of the artwork, the viewer’s eve is first drawn to the large raft in the center of the painting. The focal point in the painting is the ship on the horizon. It is the focal point because most of the people on the raft that are alive are looking at the ship. The viewer’s eye is also drawn to the man holding onto a dead little boy due to the color