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Museum of Fine Arts

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Derain’s Turning Road and Benton’s Haystack After visiting the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston for the first time, I observed many interesting works of art representing various time periods. Of all the paintings that I saw last week, two landscaped pieces seemed to stick out in my mind; Andre Derain’s The Turning Road and Thomas Hart Benton’s Haystack. Though these two art works are similar in subject matter, they clearly reflect the different styles and time periods of their artists; the abstract Derain being a Fauvist and the more realistic painter Benton representing the American Scene style as a Regionalist. Andre Derain became an accomplice to the well known Henri Matisse who founded the expression of Fauvism in 1905.…show more content…
Both of these painting exude cool and warm colors since the blues and greens can be seen, as well as the reds and yellows in both images. Vertical poles in the Haystack seem to separate the painting which can also be seen in The Turning Road, which uses the trees as the vertical separation of the painting. In both paintings, the artists do not show where the curving road leads to, which allows your mind to wonder where you would end up if you walked along the paths, my guess is that the winding roads lead to the city and an urban lifestyle. The technique of shadowing can be seen in both of these paintings. The shadowing can be clearly seen in the realistic scene of the Haystack, and even though the painting of The Turning Road is not very realistic since it uses complementary colors for its’ shadowing technique, there is still a hint of realism portrayed in the image since the shadows are present. Even though these paintings come from different time periods and were created by two very different artists, Derain and Benton, they still share some resemblance and connection. Despite the fact that these two paintings share analogous attributes, they also differ in many ways. According to the museum information card on Derain’s piece, the work is “expressive of
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