The Green Violinist

The viewer’s eyes are meant to stay on the picture, but we surge upwards towards the blue sky. When I look at the painting I travel into the man eyes. It raises questions like what he has been through or what stands in front of him.

There is an overt sense of leisure and intimacy established through the social exchanges in this painting. A man in the foreground is playing a guitar to a lady, which adds a cheery, relaxed mood. On the right side of the painting, children play on the ground, which shows how this is a joyful event. While there are many social interactions being made, the people in this painting are very generalized. Watteau purposely does not paint many of the people’s faces to put emphasis on the landscape and setting.

From the 16th century to modern day, the red violin played a significant role in people lives. It produces this sweet and calm music that allow people to be so ambitious. It has this special quality in it that people wanted to buy at an auction. In the film, I learned that the red violin was a treasure to people from different periods.

There is also a mirror placed on the table allowing the viewers to link with space beyond the frame. Also in the far back right of the painting you can see a young man talking to an elderly. The artist created an very old or old-fashioned look by using opposing colors, red and green. “The second half of the fifteenth century in northern Europe saw an expansion of genre

Juliek’s violin was a very powerful example of symbolism. The violin symbolized the broken bodies, spirits, and hopes of the Jews. When the Jews arrived freezing and exhausted at the shed like building Juliek played Beethoven on his violin. He played it to soothe the ears of the living and the dying. When Eliezer awoke he found two corpses. Juliek and his violin. You can really tell while reading this that it affected Eliezers spirit quite intensely.

“You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. … He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist 's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we 're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it 's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."” (Thomson)

The front of the painting shows three African American men in the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Each of the men are doing something different. Near the three men, are factories blowing out smoke. In the lower right hand corner, a man is being held back and dragged down by what seems to be a hand made from the smoke, showing that he is still doing work that he does not want to do. Below him are cotton fields, where slaves used to have to work and do hard labor with little to no pay. The man on the bottom left side is shown to also have the hand by him, watching his moves. He is in a pose where he is frustrated and seems to have given up on his dreams. Closer to the center, higher up, stands a third man, playing a saxophone. Music can symbolize freedom and awakening. Along the outer edges of the painting, the colors are dark browns, reds, and oranges. As the focus is drawn closer to the center, lighter colors such as yellow. Darkness, as an archetype, represents despair and the unknown while lightness shows hope, renewal and intelligence. The goals of success, exuberancy, and harmony showed hope and renewal in change in

Directly above his head, yet still connected to his head is a semi-circle of an image of a woman holding a baby. It appears that the image is a memory, perhaps of his mother holding himself or his wife holding their child. The man is surely a representation of the artist and this is “his life”. He seems to be the focus of the painting and the overall theme appears to be memories layered throughout. Right above the original semi-circle is another semi-circle of four small, colorful squares. Each square is red, yellow, and blue in color reminding me of the artists’ Hispanic origins. Moving inward from the darker, gray and white outer portion of the painting seems to be a bookcase with three separate images. Each image is of a man painting on a canvas. These three separate images of a man painting throughout the artwork could be the artists’ memories of his father, or a significant man in his life. The grays, blacks, and white used show the artists’ darker memories, while the vibrant, beautiful colors symbolize the joyous ones. Similarly, the softer, warmer colors that the artist uses represent his love, appreciation, and admiration towards his father. Overall, the painting is a memory timeline that

To the left of the group a man in a horse mask symbolizing the stage of the theatre. Amidst the group is a young man, maybe speaking to Graziani's desire that both young and old people should take an interest in the arts. The second panel incorporates a group of young men working on a potter's wheel. In the center of this panel the artist Leonard Baskin, Graziani's previous school roommate, carves a square of wood. Music is represented by five youths sitting on a bench: one is playing the mandolin, on the clarinet, and the others are singing. To the far right of the mural, a man in overalls leads a young boy up the steps of the platform to enter the scene -- symbolically entering the world of the arts.

This indicates that the story is going to spin out of control. So that is how the fiddler represents balance, because the music spinning out of control represents them losing balance. The music that the fiddler plays represents their balance. Which ties into the first quote I mentioned, where Tevye explains that each person in Anatevka is a fiddler on the roof “trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.” (Pg 2.)

One thing you may notice in the painting is that the musician may not look rich or he may look homeless. One way of making him look homeless is that the clothes that he could be wearing. He wears sweat pants and even an old shirt. He also wears an old style hat. You could also tell by the way he looks, he is laid back and chilled. He uses music to express all his feelings and even more. The performer does this not for a job or for money, but he uses it as a passion. I was once told that, “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That quotation is powerful in a way because this guy plays because it’s his dream and passion. So this picture can tell you to follow your dream too.

In this painting by Tim Burton, our eyes are immediately drawn to the large, red spiral connected to a large down facing arrow. I choose this picture, due to Tim’s excellent use of the principal of Focal point. He has used his principal of design to make this painting more complex by adding two other elements, Colour and Lines. Tim’s focal point has been careful made by the bright and bold colour choice of red. Whereas the the organic spiral in the centre of the painting recreates the sense of confusion and loneliness in which the real focus / subject of the painting might be feeling.

The art and beauty in this painting is exemplified through the eyes of Boucher. It starts with a beautiful couple taking a rest after picking up some followers. Their clothing looks very elegant and colorful which shows that they are aristocrats. The man’s eyes are gazing at a shepherdess who gathered her own flowers. Their eyes are locked despite the man having his own woman right in front of him. The light brushstrokes of the dresses, flowers, and trees

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

Chagall in order to continue painting used a patterned tablecloth instead of a canvas. He did not disguise this surface but retained elements of it in his composition. You can see the pattern over the fiddler’s shoulder and on his leg. He has the fiddler floating in mid-air with the town below him above and beside him. The different buildings in the town are arranged in geometric shapes and lines. The most important thing as in all Chagall compositions is the symbolism. The fiddler symbolizes severa!l things at once, a memory from Chagall’s childhood, from his homeland and on a personal level himself. His childhood memory was that of his uncle Neuch who didn’t play the violin very well but who was enthusiastic when he played it. Its wider Russian significance is that of the failed revolution of 1905. The leader of this revolution was a Jewish fiddler named Edouard Sormus, who led workers through the streets to fight for their rights. Chagall saw himself in the fiddler, a solitary individual, isolated by the strangeness and mystery of art. The whole build-up of the painting reinforces the poetical dimension of the picture. This painting was important to Chagall. He used the symbol of the fiddler in other composition, for example The Violinist (1911), and The Green Violinist (1923-24).