While I was in the Museum I took some notes on my observations of a few paintings that grabbed my attention. These notes are mostly about methods that the artist used to achieve depth; there is no details included about the history of the painting or the artist. Here's a few observations on three paintings I spent some time with:
Boats Returning Home, William Ritschel, 1864-1949
A California Impressionist
Boats Returning Home, William Ritschel, 1864-1949
A California Impressionist
The paint texture gives a sense of depth; large unarticulated daubs of paint dominate the foreground and gradually the strokes are smaller and more defined while the distant horizon is smoothed out.
Vibrancy of the color is also used to achieve depth: the water in the foreground has a complex range of colors of contrasting yellow and violet mixed in with touches of vibrant red. The foremost ship has a faint touch of red which a connects with a muted red in the sea in the focal point.
Focal point of the painting is the fifth ship from the foreground, this ship has the sharpest contrast lines, features the most distinct warm/cool contrast, and includes touches of every color found on the painting.
Background is very low-contrast and low-vibrancy. Flat grey strokes imply ships so far that they eye can barely see them.
Various colored unarticulated daubs in the foreground give the impression of the depth of the water as well as the difficulty to focus on your bottom field of vision.
Vibrancy of the color is also used to achieve depth: the water in the foreground has a complex range of colors of contrasting yellow and violet mixed in with touches of vibrant red. The foremost ship has a faint touch of red which a connects with a muted red in the sea in the focal point.
Focal point of the painting is the fifth ship from the foreground, this ship has the sharpest contrast lines, features the most distinct warm/cool contrast, and includes touches of every color found on the painting.
Background is very low-contrast and low-vibrancy. Flat grey strokes imply ships so far that they eye can barely see them.
Various colored unarticulated daubs in the foreground give the impression of the depth of the water as well as the difficulty to focus on your bottom field of vision.
Gabriel Revel 1686
Depth is achieved through masterful use of perspective lines in the architecture of the building as well as in the background.
Focal point is achieved by use of vibrant colors; main foreground characters wear primary red, blue, and yellow, while side characters wear muted secondary violet, green, and orange.
Main casts down on woman and blue with a little extending to man in red sash.
One of the characters faces is partially translucent; very peculiar. Is this a sign of it being added later to balance the focus more towards the man in the painting? Without this figure he would be cut off from the main party and the painting as a whole would be unbalanced. However, depending on the paint, it could have just been difficult to paint that figure over that column without giving him too much of a focus. Interesting to think about.
What's especially interesting is that if you simply look at the architecture of the building, the artist was trying to place these figures in a very large space, but he has a number of factors that flatten out the painting. The figures that you can see through the column are so small that you can see he was really trying to convey an immense depth.
The light in the foreground also gives a nice sense of depth in the foreground, but the background has it's own lighting that is equivalent in tone and even saturation, which makes the mountains feel feet away.
The foreground characters are pretty much all there is to look at in this painting except for maybe a quick glance to the random guy on the far right, so even though there's perspective lines, your eye just gets stuck on the figures in the foreground.
Lastly, there really isn't much foreground. The people are right there at the bottom of your field of vision
Focal point is achieved by use of vibrant colors; main foreground characters wear primary red, blue, and yellow, while side characters wear muted secondary violet, green, and orange.
Main casts down on woman and blue with a little extending to man in red sash.
One of the characters faces is partially translucent; very peculiar. Is this a sign of it being added later to balance the focus more towards the man in the painting? Without this figure he would be cut off from the main party and the painting as a whole would be unbalanced. However, depending on the paint, it could have just been difficult to paint that figure over that column without giving him too much of a focus. Interesting to think about.
What's especially interesting is that if you simply look at the architecture of the building, the artist was trying to place these figures in a very large space, but he has a number of factors that flatten out the painting. The figures that you can see through the column are so small that you can see he was really trying to convey an immense depth.
The light in the foreground also gives a nice sense of depth in the foreground, but the background has it's own lighting that is equivalent in tone and even saturation, which makes the mountains feel feet away.
The foreground characters are pretty much all there is to look at in this painting except for maybe a quick glance to the random guy on the far right, so even though there's perspective lines, your eye just gets stuck on the figures in the foreground.
Lastly, there really isn't much foreground. The people are right there at the bottom of your field of vision
Water Lilies, Claude Monet, 1914
A French Impressionist
A French Impressionist
Foreground is painted with circular strokes and reflection is painted with vertical strokes
There is a definite sense of depth though there is no horizon line.
Depth is achieved by complex range of colors, background at the top of the painting is all cool colors and family of color gets progressively more complex towards the foreground at the bottom of the painting.
Swirls of green and blue give an impression of lily pond leaves stacked on eachother and partially covered with water reflecting the branches of the tree above.
What I think is remarkable about this painting is that the blue lilies are the focal point of the painting. Almost the entire painting is saturated with cool colors except for the five bright pink lilies at the bottom. You would think they would stand out more and yet the uncontrasting blue lilies hold your focus. It should be noted that the blue lilies are slightly bigger in size. It's as if he wanted the focus of the painting to be the blue lilies, but he knew that if the lilies were just blue, they wouldn't become a focus. Adding the pink lilies places a focus on all of the lilies and since the blue ones are a little larger and span the entire painting, they become the focus.
There is a definite sense of depth though there is no horizon line.
Depth is achieved by complex range of colors, background at the top of the painting is all cool colors and family of color gets progressively more complex towards the foreground at the bottom of the painting.
Swirls of green and blue give an impression of lily pond leaves stacked on eachother and partially covered with water reflecting the branches of the tree above.
What I think is remarkable about this painting is that the blue lilies are the focal point of the painting. Almost the entire painting is saturated with cool colors except for the five bright pink lilies at the bottom. You would think they would stand out more and yet the uncontrasting blue lilies hold your focus. It should be noted that the blue lilies are slightly bigger in size. It's as if he wanted the focus of the painting to be the blue lilies, but he knew that if the lilies were just blue, they wouldn't become a focus. Adding the pink lilies places a focus on all of the lilies and since the blue ones are a little larger and span the entire painting, they become the focus.
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