Two Pairs of Lovers

The visual text Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann is a story about two teenage couples who is stuck in between the feud of their families the Montagues and Capulets. The feud doesn’t let their relationship last which led to their death. The closing scene helped me understand me understand the theme love is the strongest weapon that no other weapons of life can overcome. An important aspect in the visual text is the forcefulness of love, the inevitability of fate and effect of violence on an individual.

The lovers are in love with themselves being in love. They love each other, but are more preoccupied with being seen as lovers. They often feign mild hatred. She is extremely aware of being watched and plays with the audience for sympathy in their plight and ccasionally flirts with spectators.

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.

This piece is also an abstract form of art and more modern the color is red and has a feeling of happiness and joy and you have the urge to feel love just by seeing it so large and up front. “LOVE” has always been placed out in the open demanding attention from a lot of people to see. “The Kiss” is more of a classic form of art and has been placed in more private areas. Although it has a distressing grey color “The Kiss” has more depth; the feeling of intimacy is strong and makes a statement.

There is also a striking luminosity to the painting. The man and the woman’s faces appear to slightly glow, as if you can really see the reflection of the sun beaming off of their skin. This was achieved by a complex method of applying glazes. Wood would apply a layer of oil paint, allow it to dry, and then varnish it. This tedious process would be repeated numerous times. It was a process perfected by the 16th century Venetian painter, Titian. The series of glazes seems to have created an overwhelming sense of depth and radiance within the paint.

The painting Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride was painted by Jan van Eyck. Shown in this painting is a man and woman who are to be married. What makes this piece of art special, beyond the talent of Jan van Eyck, is the amount of symbolism depicted. Every object is painted with care, and is intended to show the holiness of matrimony. This includes the pair of clogs which symbolized a sacred event, a dog that was a symbol of fidelity, a burning candle and a mirror that symbolize the all-seeing eye of God, and a small statue of Saint Margaret the patron saint of childbirth. Many if the objects in the painting were from traditional Flemish customs, and it shows some Flemish marriage practices, such as one lit candle in the chandelier. Even the placement of the couple is symbolic. The man is placed near an open window, which represents the world, and the woman is next to the bed, which may indicate the woman’s place is at home bearing children.

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.

The narrator goes on to describe their feelings after seeing the lover with another person, clad in pyjamas, drinking coffee and smiling at each other. The narrator records how they felt watching the scene. At first, it was amazement, which replaced by pain as the image keeps replaying over and over again in their head. The narrator paces their room up down looking at their lover's clothing and imagining how their lover is in the hands of another person. This depicts a possibility that the narrator feels jealous of the other person enjoying the company, and intimacy of whom they thought was their

Concerning color, there is a stark contrast between the figure on the painting and the background. More specifically, the figure of the woman is predominantly delineated in white color, especially pale, ashen white, as far her apparel and facial complexion are concerned, while there are also various hues of grey, with respect to her hair and accessory feather. These white and grey shades are vividly contrasted with the prevailing red and crimson hues of the background (viz. the drape, armchair, and table). Moreover, one can detect colors of dark green (jewelry), some beige on the left (pillar), and darker or lighter shades of blue on the right side of the canvas (sky), which all in concert and in addition to the subtle purple hue forming the sun or moon exude a certain dramatic sentiment. Also, there is brown, which often easily segues into gold (viz. books and attire details respectively). The main contrast of colors between white and red would be interpreted as serving the purpose of rendering the figure of the woman, and especially her face, the focal point of the work, despite, paradoxically enough, the lush red shades at the background. Bearing that in mind, the significance of the woman’s face will be enlarged upon later, when discussing aspects of her identity.

It is painted in oil on oak panel, a medium made popular by early Flemish painters such as Jan van Eyck. It was commissioned by the Goldsmith Guild of Bruges and acted as a vocational painting that probably hung in the guild chapel. Guilds held great power in the Netherlands, and especially Bruges, during the 15th century. Most were extremely wealthy and the ones that were would have been able to afford to commission private works of art. Like many 15th century paintings from the Netherlands A Goldsmith in his Shop displays rich, saturated colors, fine details, and lush textures. In the painting, a goldsmith, possibly Willem van Vleuten, helps a couple select a wedding ring. The band of cloth on the counter next to the goldsmith is a girdle and is further support of the impending matrimony of the nameless couple and the chastity of the woman. The couple has been theorized to represent Mary of Guelders and James II, who received a wedding gift from Willem van Vleuten. The wedding gift was commissioned by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, the very year this painting is dated which is also the same year that the goldsmith guild rebuilt their chapter hall. As is also typical of paintings from the region, it is filled with subtle symbolism. The greatest of these in reflected in the mirror on the work space. Just outside the viewing

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

Love works in this, it is one of the main themes in our story. For example, as our characters, Madame and Monsieur Valmonde find an abandoned child and take her in as their own. “...when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde’ had found her

Gustav Klimt created his oil on canvas painting The Kiss between 1907 and 1908 using oil with layers of gold leaf. This piece also uses mosaic techniques as well as fresco. Just as the title suggests, the painting is a depiction of a couple embraced in a kiss. The man is kissing and embracing the woman, the woman in return is accepting the kiss and leaning up to him (Cruz 34). The painting is exhibited at the Osterrelchische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria. The Kiss is a large piece measuring 180 x 180 cm, roughly a square of 6’ x 6’ (Nerit 1).

The Kiss is a work that was painted by the Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt, between the years 1907 and 1908. Klimt utilizes his personal experiences and life changes as his inspiration for the creation of perhaps his most famous work yet. He links modernity and eroticism at the center of his work, the couple’s embrace. This embrace is a quintessential expression of one of the deepest passions known to mankind, sensual love. Klimt’s color choices, use of depth, line, and balance, are all techniques that contribute to the message he is trying to convey. This couple’s love radiates passion at its strongest, the love between man and woman, and the disconnect from reality they experience as they embrace.

Love in M. Butterfly, by David Henry Hwang, is a fantasy. Fantasy, as defined by Teresa De Lauretis, is a “primary psychic activity, a creative activity that animates the imagination and produces imaginary scenes or scenarios in which the subject is protagonist”(4). Rene Gallimard and his wife Helga are the primary protagonists in their fantasies of love. Gallimard is a French diplomat who gives into his love for the Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. The relationships in this play exemplify a kind of love that focuses on temporary happiness, despite the reality of a character’s situation. Both Gallimard and Helga are aware of their realities and attempt to create a love life to compensate for their own lackluster lives. Helga admits to being aware of her reality but like Gallimard is content with a wretched love no matter how false it is. Gallimard and Helga in M. Butterfly create layered fantasies of their heteronormative love life as a way of escaping their dissatisfying reality but they never experience true love.