Art Analysis: Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas

This essay will focus on his Golden Phase and what has inspired him during that period. Gustav Klimt started by painting morals on walls with his brother and ceilings for mansions, theatres and universities. Later on, he focused mainly on painting on canvases. His style was a complex and contradictory mixture of Symbolism, Naturalism, expressionism and abstraction and as a result, it has

Aesthetic Features and Influence of the Figure Paintings by Chen Hongshou Cao Jing Xu Guangtong Abstract: Chen Hongshou was a comprehensive and proficient painter in late Ming and Qing Dynasty, who was creative and unique in his own style. He made attempts to get rid of the “fashion of resplendent” by “traditional style” and was refereed to as the representative of artists with unique style and an influential figure in the 17th century. Key words: figure painting; grotesque style; influence Chen Hongshou (1598-1652), Zhanghou as his style name and “Old Lotus”as esteemed name, was a prominent painter, who inherited the tradition and created new style in painting. With the unique aesthetic values, his paintings,

The first difference between Monet’s garden and Picasso’s garden is artist’s background information. Background information is a general fact of the artist himself, which will provide audiences the better interpretation of painting toward each unique painting style. Claude Monet, French artist, was one of the pioneers of impressionism in 1860s, mostly created his artworks in a well-known “plein-air” painting style (Perry, 1927). Impressionism, in fact, derived from his artwork entitled “Impression, Sunrise” which gave its impression in terms of conveying feeling to most viewers as they were in the same situation (Dempsey, 2002). In general, impressionist art focuses on capturing the natural surroundings in a brief moment and shows in a rough style of painting (Grant, 2010).

Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi Botticelli, more commonly known as Botticelli was a Renaissance Florentine painter and draughtsman born in 1445. His focus was on paintings and he used oil as his medium with his subjects being figures. During his time, he was one of the most praised painters in Italy. He was summoned to take part in the Sistine Chapel commissioned by Pope Julius II while being the patron of leading families in Florence like the Medici. By the time of his death, however, his reputation was already declined being outshined by the new style of high renaissance -his was early renaissance- paintings of painters like Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican.

This is yet another abstract nonrepresentational piece by Pollock where he used slashes of enamel paint that he slung on the paper. To me it looked as if Pollock was trying to express in his artwork a message, however that message was written in a language only he could denote. This made me think of how sometimes you feel a certain way but you are not able to express it through more traditional forms of media or art. Some of the visual elements used our contour lines used throughout the portrait, value contrasts between thick buldges of enamel paint to thin smears, and the color black which is the only color used adding to the mystery theme of the overall piece. Some principles of design I observed were balance and harmony.

Baudelaire mentions “that Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject in exact truth, but in feeling.” ( Honour, p 14) The monk, a symbol of purity, could be the reason he painted the scene this way. At the moment the painting was being produced, The Crimean War was battled between Russia and France about the Russian Orthodox versus the Roman Catholic over privileges of churches in holy places in Palestine. (Britannica.com)Also during this time, The Second Empire of Napoleon was in process and education was being fought over between the state and

Chinese painting has been the major art form within Chinese tradition throughout centuries. Their paintings distinguish themselves from other art forms from different countries by their use of ink to emphasize motion and bring liveliness into a two-dimensional piece. In order to understand the old and ancient practices of Chinese painting, one must look towards Xie He’s Six Laws (or Methods) of Painting. In a demonstration of He’s six methods, Han Gan’s Night Shining White (short handscroll, ink on paper, early 8th century) not only is able to capture the physical representation of his subject but also the spiritual energy as well. Most famous of the Tang dynasty for capturing the visualness and spirituality of horses was Han Gan (Hearn).

Move the dots to a position where they are physically or psychologically touching and you would see a line. (Richard D Zakia (2002).Perception and Imaging: second edition.Focal Press.) In visual art term, value refer to the lightness or darkness. In painting, value can be seen through the gradient or hue of color that has been used to form an image. There is a technique which known as chiarascuro where painters in the ancient time explored ways of making their images more believable, they

Masaccio, who was also an acquaintance of Brunelleschi, picked up the technique from him. He reconstructed realistic figures and uses linear perspective in his painting and techniques of vanishing point in art. His masterpiece painting titled The Holy Trinity (1427-1428 CE) is one of the first painting that displays the accurate execution of perspective. Owing to the remarkable planning with linear perspective, he was able to compose the painting in a realistic manner. Based on the architecture of ancient rome, he portrays linear perspective based on contemporary architecture.

There are several reoccurring brush strokes and a limited amount of color which create a great mix of warm and cool tones. If you look to the top left of the portrait you should notice a diagonal stroke that makes its way through the whole piece. The painting centers on the model’s eye to create an emotional connection. The line work in this painting is used to outline the entire scene. The lines in the background all seem to fan out but point in towards to model forcing you to focus on her being the center of attention.