preview

Georgia O'Keeffe Essay

Good Essays

Georgia O'Keeffe

"The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen. Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest."
Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the most influential artists there is today. Her works are valued highly and are quite beautiful and unique. As a prominent …show more content…

The size of the bloom relative to a human really reflected the relative importance of nature and mankind in the artist's eyes. Georgia O'Keeffe painted everything from lilies, jonquils, daisies, irises, sweet peas, morning glories, poppies, forget-me-nots, marigolds, poinsettias, orchids, sunflowers, petunias, marigolds, and many more were reborn in her paintings. O'Keeffe wasn't happy because people looked at her paintings and tried to see them in the way of a female. She said, "Well--I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower--and I don't." She did not like the idea that people thought she painted the way she did because she was a female. She painted that way because that was how she saw things. The flowers that she created epitomize her growth, success, magnetism, and energy at that certain stage in her career. Her choice to paint these flowers was influenced by her early training, natural attraction to flowers, and the idea of something fresh and fragile.

Close observations of O'Keeffe's flowers show that she never really pursued the realistic approach. She didn't paint every petal and detail. Instead she gave her flowers a life of their own, and expression that changed significantly

Get Access