I like how Degas devolved over time. It’s like the evolution of a comfy armchair; the fibers break down, the lines become less distinct, everything flows together and becomes gentle and harmonious and simple.
Tag: painting
Sunday
While this work seems very simple, it is very complex. Look at the folds of fabric and how real they appear. Look at the detailing of the books, the curtains, the wall panels… no detail is too small to be worthy of notice and attention. It is as life-like as a photograph in many ways.
Friday
This particular work isn’t so much about the theme as it is the use of color. Everything is precisely colored and juxtaposed and contrasted in such a way to draw the eye from one place to another in sequence. It’s very effective, and the bright hues make it impossible to ignore the demand.
Thursday
You can’t appreciate this work without realizing that it’s basically bloody enormous – seriously, the damn thing is huge. Like, to get the picture, I literally had to go into another gallery and fiddle with my zoom to get everything into the frame, and I had to make sure I wasn’t going to interfere with anyone else in either gallery before I did it – which is a major feat, considering both galleries are always insanely busy. But I digress!
This is classic 18th century art masquerading as Baroque come Renaissance religious art. It’s trying to be everything at once and the result is actually a stunningly romanticized version of the Annunciation that actually works in a way that many of the Old Masters couldn’t quite get across – it’s a softer, cleaner, sanitized version of religion without all the hyperbole and the hellfire of the middle ages. And it works in a different way to the Renaissance works as well. There are clever nods to Italian aesthetics over the French hyperindulgences as well in the choices of fabrics portrayed as well as in the lack of abundance of precious metals and jewels, which would have been splayed about if the painting had been done by a French artist of the same period.
Monday
For all that this is meant to be a tranquil landscape scene, it is anything but: it is full of drama and movement and force of nature. Everything about it speaks of impending climactic change.
Sunday
Even though the subject is clearly a prepubescent girl, the perspective is all off. Her legs aren’t shaped correctly, her arms are disproportionate, her head is too large for her shoulders in context, etc. Clearly, this is all meant to add to the theme of surrealism and be a stopping off point for making everything just a little tiny bit wonky. It’s working.
Saturday
Where Mondrian was only about sharp geometric lines and intersections on a linear grid of basic concept abstraction, those who were able to tread his footsteps and branch away such as Helion with the movement into curved forms and other similar but still basic abstraction soon laid the groundwork for explosion into a world of abstraction of pure color as a form of its own.
Friday
Sometimes, a bull fight is a psychological manifestation of sexual tension and energy unfulfilled and blah blah blah, and sometimes it’s just a bull fight and randomly violent and not anything else. And sometimes, it’s a bloody painting.
Wednesday
The composition of this painting reminds me, funnily enough, of a candle, both in coloring and in structural elements. It has a very distinct feel to it, and even the paint reflects light and shimmers like the flame of a candle.
Saturday
I love this because it’s a poem wrapped in a bow, tied up in the knots in a forgotten language that only the soul understands. It is a siren song to those who hear it and chaos to those who do not.