Analysis Of Girl Sitting 1962

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Joan Brown’s piece titled Girl Sitting 1962 depicts a nude figure of a female body sitting. This colorful piece was made in 1962 and it is located in the Oakland Museum of California. It is oil on canvas, and can be seen on a white wall within a thin black frame around five by four feet. It has a composition of a female nude sitting to the left, leaving a big empty space on the right. The colors are made from a thick application of oil paint known as Impasto, where the paint are like globs, and does not look smooth at all. Instead, it is textured and shows off the brush and palette knife marks. Overall, the composition, application elements, colors, and size contributes together to give this piece an effect to make an individual feel small …show more content…

If one came close to the figure’s stomach where there’s the seafoam green, one can see the strong mark makings of the paint brushes and knife strokes, making the paint come out of the canvas. Similarly, Brown also uses big paint strokes of different colors to direct viewer’s eyes around the artwork. For instance, on the left side of the figure, there is a big vertical downward motion of a brush stroke in maroon, that connects to a green streak that goes up and encompasses the figure’s head and then downward to the body of the figure, which outlines and pushes the figure to stand out. And to make our eyes go back to the figure, Brown paints a blue triangle on the chest, making it a focal point due to it’s dark color that stands out of the light colors. And if someone stood facing the side of the painting, one can see the thick globs of paint that would make the viewer take a double glance to see if it was either a painting or a sculpture, which reinforces the idea that the painting is coming alive and making one feel …show more content…

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

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