Borasy Nop
Formal Analysis
ARTS 1301, Art Appreciation
T 6-9:10PM
Fall 2017
Professor Dave Brown
Frederic Remington’s oil piece, The Drawing of the Black Bean, which was created in 1896, portrays the one out of ten Texans chosen for execution during the border dispute between Texas and Mexico. With Frederic’s perspective, he illustrates two different classes of humanity, including the Mexican solider and the Texas prisoner. The inspiration behind this painting is to capture with imagery the prisoner reaching his hand into a jar to discover his fate. If he is lucky he will pick a white bean which means he lives; if he picks a black bean it means he will be executed. With this oil on canvas painting, Frederic depicts the cold heartedness of soldiers toward prisoners through subject matter, color, and lighting.
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Frederic skillfully created a good direction for the viewer’s eyes level. The main attention to this piece is drawn to a table enclosed by walls in front of a darkened window, where a prisoner stands up in line to pick the lucky or unlucky bean by putting his hand into a jar. During this situation, there are five Mexican soldiers standing around. Some are holding pistols, and others are carrying rifles. Moreover, Frederic portrays the prisoner who is picking the bean as a person in complete sadness with a sad expression, a beard, a dirty white shirt, and filthy black pants. Moreover, the harsh stone ground and broken pottery add the sense of isolation and violence to the painting. On the other hand, most of the subjects are formed by lines and shifts into two separate facial
The view of the painting brings to mind the all the senses. Smell is the first to come to mind as the smoke from the candle billows up, the burning smell reaches the noise as well as the burning cigar. The fruity smell overshadows that of the smell of chicken and peas. The noise of a dropped tray and the breaking of glass as it hits the floor makes everyone turn to the right. People talking over each other to be heard. All of the senses are realized as the painting is viewed.
The work depicts a family in plain clothing enclosed in a simple solitary room with a fading fire amidst the dark shadows of the background and another light source that extends from beyond the scope of the canvas. At first glance the influences of Caravaggio and Rembrandt are apparent. Their faces are neither, sad, sullen, angry, or joyful, but rather their emotional expression is plain and uncomplicated, adding a sense of timelessness to the painting. As in the description (20-34) of the piece which states; “It reflects 17th Century social theory, which celebrated the natural virtue of those that worked the soil”, (p. 609). The idea of portraying a classic simple lifestyle is a refreshing one and a concept which will reoccur in other works of the Baroque period.
Moving out of your home can sometimes be a tough determination to make whether it is for a better living or finding jobs; most of the time, I find it brave to do so.
...elationship between the people in the composition and their feelings in each other’s company. The viewer is forced to think critically about the people in the painting and their feelings and body language.
The composition of this painting forces the eye to the woman, and specifically to her face. Although the white wedding dress is large and takes up most of the woman’s figure, the white contrasts with her face and dark hair, forcing the viewer to look more closely into the woman’s face. She smokes a cigarette and rests her chin on her hands. She does not appear to be a very young woman and her eyes are cast down and seem sad. In general, her face appears to show a sense of disillusionment with life and specifically with her own life. Although this is apparently her wedding day, she does not seem to be happy.
Examining the formal qualities of Homer Watson’s painting Horse and Rider In A Landscape was quite interesting. I chose to analyze this piece as apposed to the others because it was the piece I liked the least, therefore making me analyze it more closely and discover other aspects of the work, besides aesthetics.
Douglass utilizes imagery to identify the nature of desolation of the slave; the slave owner’s absolute dominance over the slaves manipulates the slaves understanding of sorrow, revealing the loss of self reflection as the nature of enslavement.
One of the most prominent features of the painting is the use of repetition. In the forefront of the picture plane we see a three-pronged pitchfork. That sam...
The first artwork I chose for the formal analysis project is The Tiger by Ito Jakuchù originally painted in 1755. This painting is of a tiger licking its paw in the grass underneath a tree branch. There seems to be two diagonal planes as the tiger is leaning forward and sitting erect. There is a horizontal plane from what appear to be branches above the tiger. The painting has asymmetrical balance as the elements are equally distributed to balance the top and the bottom of the space. The artwork demonstrates several types of line. There are curved lines used in the tiger’s stripes. There are also diagonal, vertical and horizontal lines used in the background for the grass and the overhanging tree branch. The curved and wavy lines used in the tiger’s body, for example in the shoulder muscles, imply movement in addition to the curve in the tiger’s tail. The color scheme used in this painting seems to be complementary to one another as the artist used orange and brown tones with blue and red-orange accents for the tiger’s eyes and tongue. Black is used throughout the p...
Emiliano Zapata occupies a central place in this painting. He was the main leader of the peasant revolution in Mexico. At the back of the painting we can see his army which is mainly formed of common people. They are armed with bows, arrows and machetes in contrast to their leader, carrying only a sickle, used for cutting sugar cane. This displays that the people are soldiers and they are ready to fight to death for their freedom from the suppressors . Also it expresses their full devotion towards Zapata.
7.Locke, Alain L. "P. 69." Negro Art. Past and Present. New York: Albany, 1936. 69. Print.
...he American Civil War. No matter what, the pictures of war that I’ve seen all have the same sad, hopeless, and tired expression of the soldiers that have fought that I think the painter was trying to show. This expression that has been like boulders on the shoulders of the soldiers won’t just go away, but I see it outside of the war as well; the wars of everyday life. It’s almost as if these warriors’ heavy hearts were so heavy that it physically weighed their bodies down to a shrug. I think that John Singer Sargent wasn’t sent to France to just capture the aftermath of World War I, but to capture the feeling that people have after their own wars. I think this heavy hearted and sorrow feeling that is expressed in this picture wasn’t just painted for this particular war, but to represent the wars people like us, the soldiers, fight in everyday life in our own war.
This is the painting that will settle the battle between the Prior and Fra Lippo Lippi’s difference of opinion on the role of the artist and of art. The Prior will be happy to see the soul and Fra Lippo will be happy to be present in the painting; the body and soul together.
Flannery O’Connor is best known for her Southern Gothic writing style and grotesque characters. Dorothy Tuck McFarland states that “O’Connor created bizarre characters or extreme situations in order to attain deeper kinds of realism” (1). This writing style is seen in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. Flannery O’Connor uses many techniques to gain the reader’s attention and keep them captivated. One way that O’Connor does this is by revolving her stories around symbols and integrating religious elements into her works. O’Connor is widely recognized for incorporating her Catholic faith into her stories. “She was a devout Roman Catholic, with a Southern upbringing” (Whitt 1). There are many types of ways to interpret “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. One method is by using formalist criticism. Formalist criticism exists when a reader can approach, analyze, and understand a story by using elements like the setting and symbolism.
Picasso's Portrait of Gertrude Stein is a haunting and pensive work, imbued with a great sense of mystery and pondering. Stein's gaze is cast to the side, her hands in a gestural position, leaning forward with her chin tilted and lips slightly parted. It is as if she is about to speak and through the body language of her portrait, we envision an ensuing scene where she articulates what she's been thinking, elaborating with her hands. The essence of Stein's character is embodied in this posture and gesture, the truth of her being in this physical representation. Knowing nothing of Stein, one would at once understand that this woman is a thinker carefully considering her points and that this intellectual characterization is of fundamental importance to her mode of being.