Abraham Rattner: The Double Portrait

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The double Portrait ( Happy Birthday, Dear Eshter) was created by Abraham Rattner in1974. It’s an oil paint on Masonite and the size of artwork is 29.5 x 28 in. This painting has two figures who are Rattner’s second wife, Eshter and Rattner himself. The scene is Rattner is painting the portrait of Eshter and Rattner, himself is half of the paining. Rattner is stadning foreground. He is holding paint pallet by left hand and he is facing sideway. Eshter is painted in the painting frame, thus she is a kind of slightly background position. This was a part of her birthday gift from Rattner. The year painted for this double portrait was their 25th wedding anniversary after they married in 1949 and he was 81 years old. He painted on Masonite which is made from a mixture of wood fibers that have been broken down and molded into a board using heat, pressure and the natural adhesion …show more content…

They are durable and inexpensive comparing to canvas.The artwork shows the happy emotions and realism with his interpretation of his wife and himself. Color theme of the painting was blue and background/negative space is dark blue. His right side of face is dark blue to show the shadow of his face and distance perspective. He used the black line which is stained glass like to separate the negative space/positive space. He used dark blue green for negative space on the Masonite board. Texture of oil painting is rough and we can trace of the paint brush stroke. They give the vivid or liveliness that he was well known of. The figures are realistic and impressionism style rather than photogenic. The title of paining and sub title of paining itself tell the story of artwork. Esther looks very relaxed, content and happy. Rattner looks happy , passionate, proud of himself as well. He certainly looks overcame the grief of death of his first wife. This painting gives warm feeling even though the theme color is cool color blue because of two figures of face expressions and relaxed body

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