8/10/2019 Looking at Art Assignment(1).docx
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Looking at Art
Assignment #1
1.
Pick a painting by your favorite contemporary artist.2. Look at
the painting and take notes using the following table.
3. Use the notes to write a one page paper describing the
painting.
4. Include some information at the beginning about the artist
and his life.
Elements Description
1.
The Three Distances e.g. foreground: Trees and flowers
2. Colors and incredibly complex when it comes to color ,so he
hastaken the earlier traditions of impressionists and hes
imposing on them the science of vision . And especially the
science of color , that had been developed by Chereui and
Rood .
3. Primary Colors Blue , red , and yellow all fairly long
strokes , but then I alsosee painted over that little point of
color .
4. Complementary Colors Pink and bluues as well , that Seurat
actually added a bitlater
5. Black and White
6. Shapes
7. Lines We have a receding diagonal line that creates an
illusion ofspace .
8. Perspective
8/10/2019 Looking at Art Assignment(1).docx
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some extent , overturned and we ware left with the poetry . The
science that he was referring to
had to do with ways of making the painting seem more luminous ,
to seem brighter . This is a
painting that is brilliantly , and incredibly complex when it
comes to color ,so he has taken the
earlier traditions of impressionists and hes imposing on them
the science of vision . And
especially the science of color , that had been developed by
Chereui and Rood .
That is instead of trying to find the perfect purple , which is
really hard to do , I mean when you
mix it on your palette . The reason is when you take , say , a
blue and a red , and mix them
together , that red is not pure red , its got lots of other
things in it . The blue is not pure , so
when you mix them together it gets too muddy. So how do you get
a pure purple that you might
see in nature ? well , seurats solution was to take the red ,
take the blue and put them next to
each other . so that as your eyes receives that light , the
light waves do the mixing themselves .
this is called the optical mixture , and this is really a change
from academic technique of finding
that local color of an object , mixing it on your palette and
than applying it .
If you think back to the impressionist project , that the
impressionists sought after was to really
create a sense of outdoor light .
We have a real sense of Parisians outside on a sunny day , and a
real strong sense of sunlight
steaming through the trees . so clearly theres this bridge back
to impressionism , and in fact ,
the artist uses the term neo-impressionism when he describes the
kind of painting that he was
doing . yet this is also so far away from impressionism . its
got the leisure of the important
painting , its got the outside . but this Is nota painting that
was painted plain air . this was not
done directly before the subjects . he did small sketches .
actually dozens of drawings , and oil
sketches outside . then he goes back to the studio , and makes
very composed very carefully
structured painting , in fact , he said that he wanted his
figures to have a kind of a solemnity that
was found in the sculptures of the friars of the Parthenon . so
hes really wanting to bring a sense
of timelessness and classicism to the art of impressionism .
also , a sense of thoughtfulness , of
composing , of not doing something spontaneous . the figures are
remarkably structured within
this space , and this space itself is also remarkably organized
. theres much more of an illusion of
space , then we would ever get in an impressionist painting .
almost going back to the classical
tradition pf landscape painting of claude or of Poussin who have
alternating shadow and light
which steps us back slowly into space .
We have a receding diagonal line that creates an illusion of
space .
And yet same time , this is a painting , because of its
technique, that really draws our eye to thesurface of the caves .
so this is really interesting tension that exists between this
depictorial
space and the very obvious heavily worked surface . lets go up
really close and take a look , im
looking at the lower left corner of the painting , and Im
looking at the man who is smoking a
pipe , leaning on his back . take a close look at the way that
his body is defined , I can see some
of the earlier painting . I see blues , l see reds , and I see
yellows , all fairly long stokes , but then
o also see painted over that little points of colour of pinks
and blues as well , that Seurat actually
