Girl Before The Mirror Essay

Then there are also many psychological lines to be seen in the work. One such line is of the woman and the floor, where she is staring down towards it. Another is from the young child and the store clerk, showing a defiance between the two. Next, light and value are not very contrasting in this painting, with only the basic highlights and the shadows seen. It isn’t completely contrasting or contradicting since the colors blend well together with close to the same value ranges, dark colors seen throughout except for the people’s pale faces. There also seems to be a variety of light sources since the woman’s face along with the shop clerk and the young boy’s is lit up by what seems to be a light bulb since they’re much brighter and highlighted and then the men and women in the back aren’t really as bright, except for the ones who close to the open door, creating a blue tinge from the outside light. The shapes shown through the painting is shown to be either very round or very geometrical. There are organic shapes in things such as the umbrella or even the back of the chair, but mostly it is either straight lines and geometrical shapes. The volume shown in the painting is very much implied, correctly showing the

The dark blue left eye and light blue right tells me that Pablo Picasso may have used her actual eye color. Her body is almost as if she had her back to Picasso and turning her torso toward him; such as in most contrapposto art. In the original sketch you can clearly see her arms and the detail of her body. She is not looking back at Picasso, but instead looking toward the opening curtain. The hair of the young lady is also more visible as it drapes down her back. By repositioning her arm and adding the mask he completely changed her appearance, not only in her face but her body as well. Picasso gave her a double point of view, as you look at her nose and the angles it provides. The hand under the chin gives it an almost claw like feature, with what seems to be her fingers going to her eye to her the opposite side of the chin. With the sharp angles and mask and all the distortion it would be difficult to truly see just the young lady. It is almost as if she is shards of glass pieced together to make a

The poem the Mirror is about beauty standards. She talks about how, as a mirror, she shows exactly what she sees and she tells no lies. The narrator states, “I am not cruel, only truthful.” When the narrator becomes a lake, she can also only show truth and reflection of one’s self. The Mirror represents the truth of who we actually are, even if society has portrayed us as or forced us to be someone else.

The painting shows five women naked with flat figures, disintegrated planes and faces, inspired by African masks. The compacted space the figures occupy appears to project forward in jagged shards; a fiercely pointed slice of melon in the still life of fruit at the bottom of the composition teeters on an impossibly upturned table top. In this painting, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting by adaptation of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in goodwill of a level two-dimensional picture of a plane.

One of the aspects I believe unifies this painting is, as I talked about above, the continuation of the blue of the woman’s clothing continuing up into her hair, which gives the piece a sense of wholeness and relativity. There is also balance in this piece, for while the woman’s head is offset, this is balanced out by the elongation of her shoulder and arm in the right side of the image. Variety is also achieved in this piece through the use of a variation of hues and a lot of tonal difference. Emphasis is placed upon the hair with the use of an unnatural hair colour, as well as the face where light colours are used to highlight and pull the attention. Space is not so much of an active principle in this piece, but is still present nonetheless. Beryl is placed in the middle of the painting, with her taking up roughly 50% of the space, and the rest taken up by background.

The use of line in this piece is also very interesting. The artist employs a high horizontal line to create a plunging effect giving the piece more depth. Another use of lines in the image is to create focal points to attract the viewer. Lines are also used to separate the different sections of the painting. Overall this painting uses lines in dynamic ways that vastly enhance the viewers’ pleasure and admiration of the piece.

Guernica is monochromatic to make its imagery more powerful. Lack of color keeps the viewer focused on the subject matter at hand, as well as keeping the mural cold, which agrees with its general theme of injustice in war. Also, Picasso’s flat imagery does not distract the viewer from concentrating on imagery. The viewer is given no other choice than to concentrate on the subject matter of Guernica and ponder it’s meaning. The flat, grayscale images generalize the imagery and contribute to the general theme of unnecessary suffering and tragedy.

The artist depicts an initial confusing and weirded-out thought for the viewer at first glance, but as one deeply examines the art, the subject matter begins to become more clear. The vision being shared in this non-objective painting has a context of placing one in the standing of Mr. Man by gaining height and freedom from the (white) bars that are rising on each level that represent conflict which traps one in a “cage” of misery. The unbalanced symmetry of having the left side take up more space with little action, and the right side being smaller with the action unraveling, makes the viewer break down each composite perspective. For the left side, the mysterious female muse, Moon-Face, has an unproportional face that is almost blushing with shades of light pasty orange, with the mouth wide open. The energetic mood is amplified by the tone of yellow that is splashed in the mouth, representing a loss of words or at a state of disbelief. The female’s lower half is created with tints of red that enhances the curves on her body, as if chiaroscuro connects the light and dark contrast to show outline of the breasts, stomach, and hips in

The girl’s expression is sad and her eyes somber; she appears to be assessing herself in the mirror. She is holding a magazine which is open to a picture of an attractive older woman and there are beauty items on the floor next to her. There is an old doll that is carelessly thrown on the floor; it would appear that the doll is not very valuable to the girl. This painting is also very somber and it appears the girl might be comparing herself to the woman in the photo. This could signify her unhappiness with her appearance and her perceived need to look like the models and actresses in magazines and on television. The transition to adolescence is very difficult for young girls and they are very self-conscious about their appearance. The colors in this painting are also very neutral and

One strong aspect of this painting is it has a strong sense of both harmony and unity. The painting achieves harmony by using similar elements throughout the work and unity by making a quality of wholeness or oneness to the painting. Even though there are many different hues in this painting none have an overpowering feeling over the work which brings wholeness to the work. The work has repetition and rhythm of colors such as blue and patterns like the swirling brush strokes which brings many elements throughout the work.

Girl before a Mirror, an oil on canvas painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, shows two sides of a girl; one which is illustrated with a dark tone and one with a vibrant colorful tone. This painting is bright; colors are at full intensity and are arranged next to their complements, producing a visual relationship between shape and form. Forms are used to draw the viewer’s eye across the canvas where circular shapes, repeating throughout the work, are compensated by the pattern of diagonal lines of the background. The viewer observes the girl’s profile and full frontal image, looking into a mirror and noticing a different image of herself. In order to achieve this effect, Picasso uses a range of formal elements that highlight the

The fixation is set on her in the center of the painting due to the triangle of light used to create a focal point for the viewer. Surrounding her on both sides are the linear equivelants of past and future. From the left we see her creators helping her along with strength and the force of the wind. To the right we see her handmaiden ready to usher her into the world, where she will be clothed and no longer represent innocence. Both exhibit two very different forms of love and caring to Venus.

The shapes of the figures are sharply defined and the objects such as the table, book, and string instruments. There are diagonal rhythms throughout the painting in which it creates movement. The light source in the upper left allows the source light to have a more natural appearance throughout the painting. The shadows at the right-hand corner and the men wearing green in the middle contrast the main object with the most sources of lighting. The objects shadows and lighting create dimension and a vivid sense of more contrast. There are areas in the making with more contrast and the sharp contrast that creates movement in the painting. The shadows and the lighting throughout the painting show gradations and the highlights create more depth. Staring from the upper-left hand corner with the first figure of a gentleman wearing a hue of blue and yellow, the left side of his face and garment shows the source light in right above him. The source light above the

The relationship in the painting between the mother and daughter give it a definite asymmetrical balance and maybe a little radial balance. A radial balance because of their eyes being the central focus, then the faces, then the holding of each other, then where they are placed on the canvas, and then the bench and the landscape. The colors used by the painter, also creates balance with in the picture. The wine colored dress of the mother, red sash of the daughter’s dress, ruby lips, and the rosy cheeks give a warm feeling to the central focus of the mother and daughter. The cool color of the sky is the same as the women’s eyes as well as the trees and green on the mother’s dress. These balances give unity or a unifying feeling to the painting, especially between the mother and daughter.

In the False Mirror by Rene Magritte the artist presents his viewers with an enormous lashless eye illuminated with luminous cloud-swept blue sky filling the iris and opaque, and a dead-black disc for the pupil. The painting is filled with a great deal of allusion, because the artist gives the viewer both a look through the eye as if it’s a window and a stare back