This essay will formally analyze The Money Changers (ca. 1540) by Marinus van Reymerswaele. It is a portrait painting that depicts two men counting money in a room. The painting is created using oil on panel. This work is just over 4ft tall and 3ft wide; the actual dimensions are 49 3/4 x 38 1/8 inches. The frame in which the this work is displayed in what looks to be wood painted a dull gold and black. the frame is not completely flat, it has some dimension, and I would estimate the sides of the frame to be about 6 inches wide. In the RISD Museum the painting is placed at eye level, which allowed me to view it closely. Reymerswaele’s The Money Changers is inn good condition, which better allowed me to analyze the work. There are a few horizontal lines in the work that direct the viewer’s eye left and right. One of the stronger horizontal lines is the front of the table the two men are seated, located at the bottom of the painting. The white banner/piece of paper on the wall, behind the man on the left is another. Others are the shelf at the top left of the work, as well as bottom of the shadow it casts. the final horizontal line that caught my attention is the wooden border on the wall at the top of the image. There are two vertical lines that direct the eye in this work. The first vertical line is the edge of the …show more content…
The light in this scene enters from beyond the right of the painting. This is shown throughout the use of highlights, reflections, and shadows. Both the table in front of the men and the men themselves are illuminated by the light. To the left of the men and each object on the table, shadows can be seen. Shadows are cast when light is blocked from the surface behind an object, so this lets us know somewhere beyond the frame of the picture, there is a light source. Due to the brightness of light and the lack of other man-made light sources, my guess would be that this is
Hirsch uses bright and subdued colors to represent the rank and status of the paintings occupants. The color of the chairs in contrast to the blue-black background gives the illusion of space. He utilizes highlights and shadows throughout which gives the viewer the impression of light cast onto the scene from outside. The light bounces off the reflective surface of the king’s head as well as the silverware and gold goblets. The shades of green and yellow give the fruit on the table a real feel to it. The smoke raising becomes transparent as it swirls upward and finally vanishes. The use of color shows the importance of every element from the
His hand is positioned on the bottom left of the frame with the fingers and palm situated towards the middle left side. The shoulders positioned in the top third cut through representing a horizon. The direction of the fingers makes your eye travel around the painting, the tie the slices through the middle of the shirt, the cuff of the shirt cuts across to stop your eye falling out of the frame, the lightness balancing all the darkness. The mouth dominates the image and drags you eye back to the
The three pieces are laid out diagonally starting with the photograph at the top right corner, moving on to the middle piece which the arm in the painting is long and smooth and makes the piece flow from the first piece right through to the bottom and then finally finishing at the bottom left with the last piece. Line is one part that makes these pieces particularly work together as the thin lines flow through each piece somewhat connecting the three together. In
What do the red lines along the edge represent? What do the blue lines along the edge represent?
As indicated by the shape in the foreground, the lines that signify the contour of the rocks and freestanding structure merge. The lines lead the eye vertically as it meets the center. When looking at the painting as a whole, the viewer can see how the artist uses straight
Manet did not use vertical lines in this painting; instead, he used bending line. The bending line indicates hard working, tired, and weariness. The man’s walking stick appears to be very vertical but is actually at a slight diagonal. His life does not at all look like a proud one but more of a laboring, hard and tired life. The bending line gives away the feeling and emotion of the piece.
To further elaborate upon the elements of art on the painting, the lines are in their vast
Van Gogh's use of line really gives depth and character to the piece. The first line that caught my eye was the line outlining the bottom of the bed. The strong stroke really gives you a sense of distance between the bottom of the frame and the floor. Had it been a thin line like those to depict the floorboards, it would look like the bed was sitting directly on the floor. His use of brush strokes and the thickness of them vary immensely in the painting to create depth. The strong strokes of
How much does a dollar cost? In the image, the artist has drawn a frail man hanging from a one-dollar bill. The man in the artwork appears to be drawn in a similar position to that of Jesus Christ as he hung from the cross. The colors in the image are average colors for man and money, the man is Caucasian with brown hair and the money is green. The thing that stands out is how dim the colors are in the image they are not vibrant and full of life. The artist also made sure to depict the man in the image as frail and malnourished; he is very noticeably thin as you can see his ribs and has a very small frame. Based on the man in the image, you could infer that the artist is trying to make an argument for world hunger and how money is not used
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 Atlantic slave trade dismantled Africans family structure, because it was legal to sell husband, wives, and children separately. Due to the U .S law not recognizing them as humans or families. Also, when children were taken from their parents, they loss their primary connection with their African culture. This left them with no reliable opportunity to obtain their beliefs, and values of their origin. Consequently, as they grew older they were unable to provide their children with enough knowledge of their culture, because they did not receive nor experienced it themselves. According to activist Assata Shakur “Black Americans have no genealogical blueprint from which to draw a family history or bloodline, no accurate records kept, and no way to effectively trace our roots without hitting a dead-end of red tape or a white family tree.
The Moneylender and his Wife (also called The Money-Changer and His Wife) is a Flemish painting created in 1514 but Quentin Massys. It is Oil on Panel and is located at Musée du Louvre, Paris. This piece of artwork is Massys most famous painting and can be interpreted as a genre painting or a religious allegory. Seated behind the table, is the banker and wife in a tightly frame, focusing all the attention of them. The banker seems to be busy weighing pearls, pieces of gold, and some other jewels. Next to him is his wife who appears be to be distracted from reading her book and I think the book is a work of devotion because you can see an illustration of the Virgin and child.
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.
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
One of the most celebrated paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection, this jewel-like representation of the Annunciation is set in an architectural interior constructed according to a rigorous system of one-point perspective. The panel was almost certainly commissioned as a private devotional image, not as part of a larger structure. While the identity of the patron is not known, the work was in the famed Barberini collection in Rome in the seventeenth century.