Art Analysis Of Norman Rockwell's 'Breaking Home Ties'

“The more fella’s he can get, less he’s gonna pay. An’ he’ll get a fella with kids if he can,” (The Grapes of Wrath, pg. 128). The dust bowl was a difficult time in American history, and possibly the most difficult for the American family. In the photo, “Mother and Two Children on the Road,” you see a mother and her two children squatting in a car. As stated in the quote employers at this time would often try to get men with children as their workers. I believe this is because men with children would often be more intent on keeping their job and would work for less just to make enough to care for their family. In the photo, I think Dorthea Lange, is showing the woman’s struggle and her love for her children. While the men were off working to

The Bourgeois society is represented in the top half of the painting; tall office towers line the city sky which is a dominating reminder to Americans of a chance for prosperity. The Statue of Liberty sits in the distance; Frida pushes the ideal of Western strength and freedom to the background, which realizes the possibility of American economic failure. The water is a dark grey, reflective of the dreary years of the depression era. A collection of six industrial smoke-pipes reach high from behind the commericialist towers of the city. They seem to acknowledge the defining role of lower class workers and industrial society in the prosperity of America.

This artwork appears to be an abstract piece made from magazine clippings to create a collage. The artwork is a vertical piece that measures approximately 17 x14. It focuses in on the subject of a girl who is created out of neutral colors. She stands out against the rainbow background. In the background each clipping has a different element and pattern, but they all work in unison creating a rainbow background.

Norman Rockwell, a 20th century painter was born in 1894. He depicted many scenes of American culture through his perspective until his death in 1978. I chose to do my looking assignment on his oil and graphite on canvas and wood “Framed”. I traveled to Roanoke to see this fine piece of art in the Tubman Art museum. When I first looked at this piece I was very drawn to the texture. By the looks of the picture I took, you cannot really tell that this piece is textured. This piece depicts a picture of a man who seems to be a museum worker holding a frame and essentially framing himself in it. In this piece you also see other pieces of art hanging on the wall around him giving him a wide variety of very expressive looks. You see in this painting that Rockwell used a picture inside of a picture to tell the story of the museum worker.

The 1920s were a time of great prosperity and revitalization. This decade gave way to many great social milestones for every class of people. From the limits for immigration to the boom of the auto industry American society was drastically altered. Issues such as foreign immigration,prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan ,evolution, women’s roles, and race were the focus of the populus and drove politics within the nation. Art played a major role in how the black community expressed their new found sense of culture. Painting has always been a way for someone to portrait their ideas.

The imagery helps Hall depict a father caring for their young child. Hall is first telling the reader that the father is with his child. The child seems to be very young because the father takes the child in his arms. “I take you in my

The painting, House by the Railroad, by Edward Hopper was completed in 1925. The house he painted was in the style of a Victorian house. The house was built next to railroad tracks. He painted House by the Railroad with oil based paint on a canvas. The artwork is a twenty-four by twenty-nine inches in a frame. When I look at this painting, the first thing I think of is where is it located? It looks like it is in the middle of nowhere but then again it looks like it is in a town because of the railroad tracks. The house is built next to the railroad tracks but there are no trees. The house contains several windows which I think would be neat. In this painting, he uses vertical and horizontal lines. He used vertical lines for the columns of the house and parts of the house. He also uses horizontal lines for parts of the house and the railroad tracks. Many of the lines Edward Hopper painted were medium size. The painting is painted with several figures lined up. If you look at the front of the house, you can tell that it is square on top of another square. The one on the bottom left is also a square but it is bigger. The picture and the lines are very soft. The lines in the picture never seem to overlap each other. The way the sun is in the picture makes it look absolutely beautiful. The sun could be either rising or setting by the look of the artwork. House by the Railroad was painted in the United States. Edward Hopper painted this picture after he came back

The Arts and Craft movement was a social and artistic movement, which began in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth spreading to continental Europe and the USA. Its adherents-artists, architects, designers and Craftsmen sought to reassert the importance of and craftsmanship in all arts in the face of increasing industrialization, which they felt was sacrificing quality in the pursuit of quantity. Its supporters and practioners were united not so much by a style rather than the common goal- a desire to break down the hierarchy of the arts and to revive traditional handicrafts and make art that could be affordable to all.

The painting illustrates the artist’s rendering of what happened to Chief Wi-jún-jon when integrated into the white culture following a trip to Washington, DC in 1832. On this returning side you see no Indian heritage, it has been destroyed by civilization. The painting is a great view through the artist’s eyes and mind as to how he felt about the change which occurred with the Chief during his time. George Catlin truly honored and respected the Indians that he captured so elegantly in his paintings and I believe he felt saddened when Chief Wi-jún-jon returned to his native people looking and acting liking a white person.

Red appears to dominate the painting and serves as an eye-catching color. The use of intensely saturated colors draws the attention to the front couple. Additionally, the red color plays with the mind of the onlooker without them thinking about it. It suggests deep passion, anger, and struggle. The artist intends to relay his feelings about the event to the viewer. His outlook consists of disgust towards the great depression that leaves many taken advantage of due to desperation.

The dominant figure that steered the course of the Abstract Expressionist movement was the infamous painter Jackson Pollock. He was born Paul Jackson Pollock in Cody, Wyoming on January 28, 1912. He was the fifth and youngest son and grew up in Arizona and California after his family left him when he was a little over one year old. Pollock's artistic journey began at the Manual Arts School in Los Angeles, California where he joined two of his brothers. From there, he went on to New York to attend the Art Students' League after being convinced by one of his brothers whom also attended the school.

The first artwork I chose didn’t have a title with it but it was drawn by Douglas A. Beckett. I went to the Activity Center of San Marcos with Geoff Bretches and Alice Horn (My mom). The painting is a portrait with multiple types of rock looking shapes. You can’t really tell what the time of day was but it looks like it was outside on a mountain or cliff. It is a vertical realistic piece. The artwork was made in the contemporary period because it was drawn just last year. There is just a cluster of a bunch of big rocks surrounding pebbles. The artist must not be that famous currently because I couldn’t find any information on him.

Another interesting component Sargent implemented in his portrait is his attention to detail where one of the daughter has her arms hidden behind her back suggesting that she (or her family) is hiding something. It is difficult to truly understand the meaning of the painting without the context and history of the artist – when looking at the work’s history we are able to see that when Sargent was originally sought out by Edward Darley Boit and in his commission, he decided to create something that was different from the traditional portrait scene. According to the mfa.org regarding Sargent’s unique perspective on the portrait it is revealed that the family was disconnected in their relations. The daughter’s strange spacing and similar clothing in the image further alludes to the idea that even though the daughters of the family are “connected” in reality there are a lot of differences that are unaccounted

The next question we usually ask ourselves is “why?” why the color, why the worn out look of the farmhouse, why the surroundings, in general why is the painting depicted like this? That brings up the need to analyze the work of art at hand. When focusing on this painting, you can see a few birds soaring over the farmhouse. They’re quite small so there’s some difficulty telling if they’re flying towards or away from the farmhouse. It is still very probable that they flew over it at some point in time though. The lines in the painting are mostly depicted in the trees, and outer walls of the farmhouse. Standing firm the trees look, and or represent strength and dominance. It makes you wonder if there’s still hope for the dead looking environment surrounding the farmhouse. When first observing this painting; the thoughts were generally negative such as; sad, abandoned, lonely, and depressing, etc. The painting is indeed centered, and the focal point is obviously the farmhouse.

When I first saw Grant Wood’s painting of the American Gothic, I was very young, somewhere in the age range of 9 years old. The elderly couple whom both had emotional faces and the elderly gentleman had a pitchfork in his hand. At the time this scared me as I often felt that this piece was awful displaying nothing more than two people on a farm Now that I am older I enjoy this art piece immensely.