The mesmerizing painting created by the 20th Century French artist Paul Cezanne portrays how even incomplete works are capable of depicting its own form of art and overall experience. His painting On the Banks of a River is constructed using oil on canvas and is an unfinished lifelike rendering of a natural scenery; well-preserved today at the RISD Museum. Cezanne’s process of painting and his techniques are clearly discernible in this early stage of art. Likely using a wide brush, his paint strokes are both purposeful and confident where his objective is to present only the most vital parts of the piece and each object’s location, creating an artwork made up of blocky, thick, and layered strokes similar to that of impasto paintings (a technique that layers large amounts of paint in order to form a larger picture). From close up it is challenging to distinguish the subject of the painting besides multicolored blotches of paint, but at a distance one can grasp the different shapes and colors merge to form a complete landscape. There are also three layers to this work, each diverse and together offers a sense of depth in the form of overlapping grounds and value contrasts. The foreground is the warmest, composed mainly of a sandy yellow color dotted with gray streaks possibly representative of stones or pavement, with some blue highlights to contrast the dirty yellow. The middle ground is the most detailed and consists of many dark colors and bright red and yellow geometric
In Berthe Morisot’s painting, she uses colors ranging from blue to green to yellow to orange. She uses paint thinly but in big brush stroke but her color was dull. Her brush strokes are in a cross hatching manner. This method of cross hatching creates depth and shadows on the foreground. Intermixed, in her piece are signs of dry brush strokes. Morisot’s figure is enticing to the viewer by staring back at the onlooker. Morisot’s painting looks very freeing as that is what she longs for. She has a sketch like quality about her painting.
This work embodies the period style because it contains avant-garde geometric shapes to define the forms, colors, and interpretations that were important to the Post-Impressionists. First off, the harshness of the lines goes hand in hand with the shapes that exist in the work. The shapes tend to be simplified shapes, which demonstrates that Cezanne wanted things to appear as if they could be broken down. Cezanne utilizes an array of geometric
Texture and pattern are very easy to identify in this painting. The street’s cobblestones show texture and pattern in the way that they are arranged. Texture is also demonstrated through the paint strokes on the buildings, the tree, and even the sky. These thick, uneven strokes add a layer of depth and texture to all elements of the painting.
The painting depicts a singular mountain with trees and abstract landmasses in the foreground. The trees are placed in such a way that they seem to echo the shape of the mountain. This is an example of Cézanne’s attempt to created a structured composition out of the scenes that he observes in nature. Cézanne was not depicting nature as it was, but rather he was, as he called it, making “a construction after nature” (Stokstad,1013). This is one idea that lead Cézanne away from the impressionists, who were more concerned with reproducing on canvas exactly what their eyes perceived. Another thing that was different between Cézanne’s style and the impressionists’ was the way that he applied paint to the canvas. For example, in this painting, the trees and land in the foreground are loosely painted in; their forms are created by an amalgamation of colored blotches. The blotches of color often bleed into each other, and the forms that they represent begin to dissolve. The image is flattened by the ambiguous forms in several spot in this painting, creating a disruption in the illusionistic space and bring the viewer’s focus on the inherently flat surface of the painting. The most effective technique that Cézanne employs in his attempt at depicting space in this painting is atmospheric perspective. Coloring the mountain with the same shades of blue
How does the river function in the story? Is it a metaphor, a catalyst, or both? Is it a character?
The first thing to note is the overall composition of the painting. First and foremost it is a landscape painting. The colors are very monochrome; the space is stretched to reveal a depth to the painting that the eye cannot capture; and there is stillness to the art that embraces nature and serenity of life. In the right-hand corner of the painting there is calligraphy. The calligraphy lacks the precision, but is very clear in its form, much like the depiction within the painting
The uses of actual and visual texture manifest themselves throughout the painting. Actual texture can be found in the thick wooded area in the right of the painting where the top of the woodland canopy is painted in thick brushstrokes. It is also apparent in the sea, where thick, short brushstrokes give the illusion of movement and variations in height of the waves. Although rather elementary, visual texture can be found in the tree in the foreground, where thin, white and black lines give the appearance of volume to the bark of the tree.
The convergence of the implied lines forming the river banks with the fading blue mountains on the right produce a left to right movement when viewing the painting. The invisible lines created by the mountain range and the river emphasize direction by moving the viewer from a narrow and cramped foreground to a vastly open background that seems to go on for miles. His use of lines to produce this movement down the river has an effect of taking the viewer on a short ride into the distance towards the open mountains under a clear blue sky with white fluffy clouds. In contrast the buildings in the distance are enveloped in white with much softer lines and less defined outlines. This progression from clearly outlined and defined to less defined and wispy shapes communicates the thought of starting a journey in firm reality and moving down a dreamy river towards the unknown. Carefree clouds, beautiful mountains, and blue water just take the viewer to a more serene place, away from the reality of the
In this painting, two visual elements stand out over all the rest. These elements are that of color and texture. Color in art is an element that has to be phenomenal in order to get recognition and true appreciation from the viewers. In this painting, the colors are rich, vivacious and standout as dark, but bold representations of the uniqueness of it all. The use of brown and yellow and green and grey and white all come together in a harmony of color and unity. As for the texture in the painting, it is that of brisk and roughness that is nature. The sharp edges of the bucks rack and the cold, rough edges of the dead tree show
The work is very smooth and fluid making it appear much like a photograph. The oil is not built up on top of itself keeping it very two dimensional. The colors vary between dark and light throughout the painting. In the top right corner, the sun, outside the painting, shining down, aluminates the castle and also the lone tree at the bottom left corner. Besides the back cliff, the rest of the painting is in shadow and displayed in a much more melancholy tone. The colors that Cole focuses on, to display the sharp contrast between rock and nature, are mostly dark greens and gold. The striking blue of the river stands out dramatically from the rest of the colors and draws the eye after the initial citing. The grey in the cloud is the only place where I can find that shade of gray in the work, and it sets itself apart from the snow white clouds in the background. The color helps draw the eye immediately to the castle on the hill. My eyes then fallow the flow of the river down to the tree, which is illuminated by a beam of sunlight.
The primary focus of this section is to explain the “act of painting.” Flack begins her book with notes on the creative process and what it means to be an artist. Everything from the perception of color to confronting a blank canvas is addressed in this section. Audrey Flack briefly touches on the spiritual
The oil on canvas landscape painting does not reveal the name of the painter, but instead it leaves the observer with several explicit and implicit clues which may lead the viewer a step closer to its creator and its reason for existing. Additionally knowing that the painting was created in France sometime around the mid 17th century narrows it down to a few possible influencing eras. Moreover, having the freedom as a spectator to make assumptions based on legitimate evidence lead me to think critically and got me to figure out the painter’s background information, intended audience, intentions, and etc.
Another main focal point in this canvas was subject matter. This is where the objects or events are described. The artist gives us different objects such as the old couple seems displayed as depressing. Or you can observe it as normal couple, walking across the river, enjoying the night. He also gives us a boat which could possibly be giving us a correlation because the boat looks like it’s broken or about to sink. There is also another interpretation with the object that Van Gogh displays which is, the stars. Depending upon which way you want to take it, they look like flowers or fireworks. Also, there is a sense of false appearance with the houses. If you stare at just the bank you will notice that it is just a bunch of bright lights but if you pay attention to the water close to the bank, you will acknowledge the darkness or shadow of the houses.
Claude-Joseph Vernet made a painting that brings your attention to the foreground. In the front, there is a boat being boarded. Some of the people that are not boarding the boat are standing by the sea. In the sea, some boats are sailing off in the distance. One of the boats in the distance is a large boat that gives the illusion of being three-dimensional. The form gives this illusion because of the reflection in the sea. If you look in the lower-right, you can see the light from the sun illuminating the sky. This light is hidden behind a large mountain that also has a three-dimensional form. There is also lots of texture in the painting. Some texture is seen in the mountains and ground giving a rough look, and some is seen in the sea in the form of ripples. On top of the mountain in the lower-right, there is greenery that has an illusion of being light and feathery. In that mountain, there is an arch that makes the other side visible. In the far distance, you can see a faint
One of Vincent Van Gogh’s most world renowned paintings is his landscape oil painting Starry Night. The painting displays a small town underneath an unusual yet still extremely beautiful night sky. In this night sky, Van Gogh utilizes an array of colors that blend well together in order to enhance the sky as a whole. The town is clearly a small one due to the amount of buildings that are present in the painting itself. In this small town most of the buildings have lights on which symbolize life in a community. Another visual in Starry Night is the mountain like figures that appear in the background of the illustrious painting. Several things contribute to the beauty of Van Gogh’s painting which are the painting’s function, context, style, and design. Van Gogh’s utilization of these elements help bring further emphasis to his work in Starry Night.