Norval Morrisseau Essay

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Art has been the reflection, interpretation and representation of artists' beliefs and morals eternally. Various artists stand for different matters that quite possibly affect their lives, or might be of an interest to them. Norval Morrisseau is an artist that I was intrigued by his portrayal and the techniques used in his paintings. In this paper, we are going to look at the implementation of Morrisseau's painting style used to expose his philosophies of different aspects in his life. Starting with a brief introduction about our artist, Norval Morrisseau; he is an Aboriginal Canadian who lived from 1931 to 2007, and had been raised by his maternal grandparents. They were Christian devoted, who taught Morrisseau the religion's dogma. Morrisseau …show more content…

That form of representation or sketching involves the drawing of the skeletal structures in thick black lines, and in the case of Morrisseau’s "Astral Planes" painting, humans and animals. Lines drawn in the "Astral Planes" painting are smooth, unbroken, and with no sharp edges; mainly forming the outline of different objects on the painting. Lines get thickened in some shapes creating a volume to certain parts of the objects, such as the head and the arms of creatures. Lines and shapes integrate to produce an eye-pleasing piece of art to look at. The “x-ray” effect provides a feeling of animation to the painting observer. The painting’s canvas has been exploited perfectly. All the space on the canvas had been used. However, space was not used to create depth, and there was no layering or recession present. The painting does not feel that it has motion, apart from what it looks like the creatures eating from the tree of life. The eating motion was depicted by the posture of the creatures, with arms extending towards the plants – in the case of creatures – or beaks being wide open – in the case of birds. All these factors 'accord' the painting with a unique

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