When people think of van Gogh, they so immediately identify with Starry Night or Sunflowers, and they don’t know about the wealth of so-called lesser works that dot the globe. I wouldn’t call this a lesser work, so much as an experiment in composition: it’s very clearly done in a tri-band, which was done to delineate the subjects clearly. The sky is separated from the factory from the ground, and each gets its own focus and its own color scheme and treatment. It’s like having three paintings in one, in a way: he’s attempting to channel earlier landscape artists by using the three color system to foil us into believing a sense of scale and continuity, but instead, he’s given us three separate entities to study. The sky with its hues of grey, green, green, and blue bleeding together almost as if in a watercolor technique. The factory line, in a perfunctory pastel oil sketch riot of colors and lines that scream impressionism. And the grasses of rich greens, yellows, and golds with flecks of blue that reek of pointilism and grasping at the newest ideas. This painting is an experiment and it is successful.
Tag: 19th century
Monday
There is a weird juxtapositioning of time in this work: the model’s clothing doesn’t really fit the 19th century, but seems to harken back to an earlier romanticised version of the Renaissance or early Baroque, but even then, it’s none of those at all. What the hell, dude? Crazy confusing shit. You haven’t got an actual clue what you’re meant to be looking at because you’re too busy being confused by the wibbly wobbly timey wimey disturbance that is this chick’s clothes.
Sunday
This is meant to be a direct attack on those people who claimed that the art of landscape painting was played out. If you notice, the detailing of the leaves and thickets is far more than needed to prove the point of what they are. Every bit of this painting is overkill.
Sunday
I love that this is so unassuming and totally sitting there, going, “hey, I’m just a piece of art pretending to be a real painting, but I’m legitimately a painting in my own right, but I’m kind of casually just going to be over here in the corner like the redheaded bastard step-kid, mmmkay?”
Monday
This chair is simply stunning. Though the lines are simple and swooping, they are meant to draw the eye and hold it. The contrast of the gilded coloring against the darkened wood is meant to direct your eyes inward to the exquisite upholstery. And, let’s face it: that cushioning is freaking fabulous.
Friday
This is the art of designing in multidimensional space – each layer clearly had to be meticulously designed on its own before being spliced together, else they wouldn’t work together so harmoniously. So many things could (and probably did) go wrong; I’d like to see the original models to see what changes were made between the conceptual models and the final piece, but they probably no longer exist.
Tuesday
This is kind of that bleak, desolate post-Civil War American landscape that we just kind came to expect from the Reconstruction era. The country was still divided and scarred and people were tired and not at all okay with any of it. The art of the time reflected that dismal quality and while beautiful and serene, many of the landscapes have this depressing quality that you can’t quite quantify.
Monday
This painting is insane. Off the charts. The lighting literally follows you as you move around the room and changes shape and does crazy, creepy things. It’s crazy, creepy, intriguing, and insane.
Wednesday
I like this because the composition is very simple and modern in its simplicity while mocking the idleness of the upper middle class and upper class. I mean, what do you do during the day? Sit around and wait for something to happen. Work? Piffle. We’ll work when we’re dead, darling. Work is for the poor.
Tuesday
This thing is super creepy up close and it feels like it’s watching you even though you know it’s just an illusion and it’s only a bronze statue and it isn’t alive.