While visiting the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the works of Archibald Motley caught my attention. Two paintings by the same artist are the focus of this compare and contrast paper. Both are oil paintings during the same time period. Portrait of my Grandmother was painted in 1922 and Hot Rhythm was painted in 1934 only 12 years later. Although the paintings are by the same artist and have similarities, there are also differences which make the artist’s work interesting. Portrait of My Grandmother and Hot Rhythm are two paintings by Motley that capture different emotions (aspects would be a better word) of African Americans.
The expressions of the people in Hot Rhythm are those of carefree people enjoying life. However, Motley’s grandmother’s expression is very serious depicting the struggle of a former slave (Brown, 2014). The lines on the face of Motley’s grandmother define depth. The features and volume of her face are defined with deep lines above the brow. The lines around the nose and below the mouth show signs of age using shading to help create the shape of the face. The faces in Hot Rhythm are less defined using circular shapes for fullness. Most of the eyes in Hot Rhythm are closed. In Portrait of My Grandmother the eyes are open and glimmer with the use of light hues of brown. Even though the eyes are open, the lines in the face of Portrait of My Grandmother highlight the features and give character to the eyes. The contour lines around the eyes suggest volume by using dark shades around the eyes.
The color palate in Portrait of My Grandmother has low saturations or intensity of color. The values of color or tint is low using shades of grey, white, and brown. For example, the clothes that the grandmo...
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...palate in Portrait of My Grandmother. Motley uses a grey background to compliment the brown skin. The neutral clothes of the grandmother continue the simple look of a woman who has suffered life as a slave.
Although the clothes and facial features are different and present images of the Motley’s view of the different individuals in the painting, the definition of the individual body masses also tell a story. According to Brown (2014), Motley believed that hands tell a story about a person. Portrait of My Grandmother is a painting that shows the difficulty of hard labor in the grandmother’s hands. The hands are thin with veins protruding through the skin. The fingers are long with knuckles raised from the skin. The physical appearance of the people in Hot
Rhythm are different from the thin aged appearance of the grandmother in Portrait of My Grandmother.
Elizabeth Catlett`s art documents history, but particularly the experiences of the black and brown working class women.. She combined what she has learned of African art, African American art, and
Romare Bearden, Harry Henderson. A History Of African-American Artists. New York : Pantheon Books , 1992.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) had three different artists work on display. It was split up into three different rooms the first room was Design 99 To Much of a Good Thing and in the next room is Latoya Ruby Frazier Mother May I and in the last room was Jef Geys Woodward Avenue. The art that was on display was not traditional art work. All of the artist’s work displayed in the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit was out of the box thinking. The flow in each exhibit made it easy to move from one piece of art work to another piece of work.
Spending time looking at art is a way of trying to get into an artists’ mind and understand what he is trying to tell you through his work. The feeling is rewarding in two distinctive ways; one notices the differences in the style of painting and the common features that dominate the art world. When comparing the two paintings, The Kneeling Woman by Fernand Leger and Two Women on a Wharf by Willem de Kooning, one can see the similarities and differences in the subjects of the paintings, the use of colors, and the layout
The face of the portrait is detailed, and more naturally painted than the rest of the composition. However, the left iris exceeds her eye and extends past the normal outline. The viewer can see every single brush stroke resulting in a unique approach to the capturing human emotion. The streaky texture combines with the smoothness flow of the artist’s hand creating contrast between the hair and the face. The woman’s hair is painted with thick and chunky globs of paint. The viewer can physically see the paint rising from the canvas and flowing into the movement of the waves of hair. Throughout the hair as well as the rest of the portrait Neel abandons basic painting studies and doesn’t clean her brush before applying the next color. Because of the deliberate choice to entangle the colors on the brush it creates a new muddy palate skewed throughout the canvas. Moving from the thick waves of hair, Neel abandons the thick painting style of the physical portrait and moves to a looser more abstract technique to paint the background. Despite the lack of linear perspective, Neel uses a dry brush technique for the colorful streaks in the background creating a messy illusion of a wall and a sense of space. The painting is not clean, precise, or complete; there are intentional empty spaces, allowing the canvas to pear through wide places in the portrait. Again, Neel abandons
Even though, the light source is to the right side of the drawing due to the fact that Gillray uses a light grey color on top of black that is already shown on the left side of the fireplace, which makes a shadow of her foot on the ground. The artist uses a few of both warm and light colors for the woman’s wardrobe and chair that contrasts with the background. The light colors make the woman stand out even more from the background. Besides, I feel as if the artist tried to make the woman’s feet and the knife appear larger than it really is. The reason why I say this is due to the fact that normally women’s feet are little and not that big. From observing the drawing, it seems as if the cat is being compared to the elderly woman. Cats are self-centered animals that spend a lot of time pampering themselves. From looking at this drawing the women seems as if she spends a great amount of time tending to the horrible corns on her
Through the use of complementary colors, she achieves great contrast. Contrasting hues develop a theme of light vs. dark, or in Liu’s case, expectations vs. reality. Dark colors are used to suggest the harsh, chaotic conditions experienced by the workers; while light, less saturated colors illustrate the calm passivity of traditional Chinese customs and ideas. The sky surrounding the stylized women contrasts greatly with the surroundings of the exhausted men. The dark hues establish heavy visual weight below the figures and the light tones of the sky create a sensation of weightlessness and help to further distinguish the fantasy like qualities. Liu also includes the application of analogous colors, primarily to make the traditional figures less dramatic and to help unify the surrounding
Throughout his painting, Ribera primarily uses dark tones. The colors are analogous, considering black, brown, and tan work together
Eyes in “The Displaced Person” tend to be illustrated with violent terms. The eyes are harsh and very rarely are they described softly; Mrs. McIntyre has eyes like “steel or granite,” characters’ gazes often “pierce,” and “icy blue eyes” and other similar descriptions are common.
Comparing different works of art from one artist can help a person gain a better understanding of an artist and the purpose of their artwork. An artist’s works of art usually have similarities as well as differences when compared together. Sandy Skoglund is a photographer that stages entire rooms to create a scene for her photographs. Skoglund uses painting, sculpture, and photography to create her artwork. Due to the fact that most of her photographs are created in similar ways, almost all of her photographs have similar components represented throughout the photographs. Differences can be found in her artwork as well. Skoglund’s Revenge of The Goldfish, 1981 (Figure 1), is a popular work of art that is represented at the Akron Art Museum
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
This essay will also compare the work of Thomas Moran, another Hudson River School artist working with the same subject matter, and will attempt to clarify the artist’s similarities and differences in regard to both technique and contributions. The work of Winslow Homer, a contemporary of Church, will be briefly discussed in relation to the impact the Civil War had on subject matter in relationship to nati...
It is easily inferred that the narrator sees her mother as extremely beautiful. She even sits and thinks about it in class. She describes her mother s head as if it should be on a sixpence, (Kincaid 807). She stares at her mother s long neck and hair and glorifies virtually every feature. The narrator even makes reference to the fact that many women had loved her father, but he chose her regal mother. This heightens her mother s stature in the narrator s eyes. Through her thorough description of her mother s beauty, the narrator conveys her obsession with every detail of her mother. Although the narrator s adoration for her mother s physical appearance is vast, the longing to be like her and be with her is even greater.
It differs greatly, in its portrayal of mothers, from Le Brun’s Self-portrait with her Daughter and Cassatt’s artworks. Behind Marie Antoinette, you see a jewelry cabinet, off to the right of the canvas. This illustrates that, although she is with her children, she finds treasure within her own materialistic objects. Furthermore, her expression lacks emotion as she holds the child loosely within her arms. The child looks off, barely acknowledging its mother, who is holding him. Next, the child, on the far right of the canvas, reveals an empty cradle, alluding to a child who has died. Again, Marie seems unfazed or simply chooses not to acknowledge the boy’s actions. Furthermore, the young girl, on the right of the canvas, clings on to her mother as she lovingly looks up to her mother. Marie holds a wry smile, appearing somewhat annoyed or displeased. The color scheme is dark, but Le Brun utilizes contrast to emphasize the royal family. However, it only works to further expose the detached relationship between a Marie and her children. According to the lecture, “To counter people’s hatred of the queen and their criticisms of her as a bad (even a degenerate) mother, Vigée Le Brun was commissioned to paint this portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children” (Gartrell). Sadly, the painting was
The exhibition is not too large as it only contains around eighty artworks. These works all have African Americans as the main subject since Marshall believes that African Americans deserve more attention in art because they are almost “invisible” in a way. Mastry is arranged chronologically, starting with Marshall’s earlier works and then leading to galleries with themes such as beauty or the civil-rights struggle. Mastry should be visited because it allows a person to learn about African American art which is underrepresented and underappreciated. The general idea or thesis of this exhibition is that African Americans have been looked down on throughout history and viewed as subhumans, or even invisible. Marshall’s exhibition is about appreciating African Americans and viewing them as what they are: humans.