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Deer In The Forest 1 Analysis

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The Philips Collection located at 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009 is a block north of DuPont Circle, and houses a collection of Modern painting from a multitude of modern art movements including German Expressionism to Abstract Expression. These paintings adorn the walls of the first three floors, and the basement contains the library. The Phillips collection not only houses paintings, but also has an array of modern sculptures, and photographs too. The dialogue created between the viewers and the artwork exhibits was immense and thought provoking. However, two paintings considerably stood out. Reclining Figure, an oil painting produced by Pablo Picasso in the year of 1934 mounts a wall on the third floor, and has the dimensions …show more content…

Even though Pablo Picasso was a leading figure in the art movement of Cubism, and Franz Marc was a leading figure in the art movement of German Expressionism, more specifically the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Deer in the Forest 1 by Franz Marc represents Cubism and Reclining Figure by Pablo Picasso represents German Expressionism because of the characteristics the paintings exhibits.
The composition of Deer in the Forest 1 by Franz Marc consist of a forest landscape with a group of deer situated in the bottom middle left of the composition, a wild bird flying, and trees growing vertically in the background. There are five geometrically shaped deer. The first deer is laying on the ground, and is looking restfully to the left. The face of this deer is more distinctive in characteristics, compared to the other deer’s in the picture. The second deer is located to the right of the first deer. The body position of this deer is not as distinctive, and could be laying, jumping or sitting. The abstraction of the third deer, which is to the right of the second deer, has unrecognizable facial features. However, the body position creates some movement onto the viewer’s eye because of the …show more content…

Muted colors are toned down by reducing the saturation of color. The use of muted colors is an archetypal characteristic of the Cubism art movement, as a way to focus on the subject matter (The deer), creates shallow space, and not distract the viewer. The color pallet consists of the muted primary colors of blue, red, and yellow. Franz Marc always associated color to certain meanings, and his approach to color theory is stated in a letter written to fellow artist August Macke which says “Blue is the male principle, astringent and spiritual. Yellow is the female principle, gentle, gay and spiritual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the color to be opposed and overcome by the other two” (Marc). However, in the composition of the painting, the colors in the background go from blue, then red is directly located behind the group of deer, then a tinge of yellow. The color blue ensconces and surrounds the red, except for the upper portion of the left hand side, which is offset by a dash of yellow. Mixed from the color blue on the right side, and the yellow on the left, the secondary color of green swallows up the rest of the upper half of the background. Secondary colors like orange and green, are used on the lower portion of the composition, in which the deer are colored orange, and the foliage is green. The use of light shatters from the bottom right

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