Christian imagery, especially the theatrically bloody martyrdoms that hang in Mexican churches, pervades Frida's iconography. Her house in Coyoacan displays a particularly gruesome Road to Calvary, in which the overemphasis on Christ's wounds seizes the spectator on the most primitive physical level. This bloodiness and self-mortification hark back to preconquest times, when the Aztecs tore out human hearts and punctured their own skins to ensure life's continuance. But it was Spanish Catholicism that brought to Mexico the depiction of pain in veristic and human terms, creating images so real and so frightening that the Indians could not help but be awestruck and, of course, converted. Borrowing the rhetoric of Catholicism, Frida used the same combination of pain and realism to attract devotees to her cause.
In another 1940 Self Portrait, Dedicated to Dr Eloesser Frida's necklace of thorns is just a single strand, but it draws even more blood. In the background, leafless broken-off twigs profiled against an opalescent sky look like the dead twigs woven into Frida's necklace in the self-portrait with the hummingbird. No doubt the dry white buds that mingle with the twigs (and that droop from Frida's headdress as well) likewise refer to her desolation. Although Frida has flowers in her hair and wears the earrings in the shape of hands that Picasso gave her when she was in Paris, she looks like someone dressed for a ball for which she has no escort. Frida's work from the year in which she and Diego Rivera were separated demonstrates a heightened awareness of color's capacity to drive home emotional truths. As a self-taught artist, she began with a highly personal and unorthodox feeling for color. Her palette came out of her love for the startling combinations of bougainvillea pinks, purples, and yellows seen in the decorative arts of Mexico. She chose colors the way she chose her clothes - with exquisite aesthetic calculation. In such early works as Henry Ford Hospital, pastels create an ironic disjunction with the painful subject matter. In later paintings the choice of colors is just as odd and often even more dissonant and complex. The soft, pearly sky and the bright flowers in the Eloesser Self-Portrait, for example, only accentuate the chill of Frida's predicament. Their richness recalls the way statues of the scourged Christ in Mexican churches are often surrounded by flowers, lace, velvet, and gold.
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In this painting, Frida depicts herself in Henry Ford Hospital, lying on bed naked with blood and hemorrhage. As in Four Inhabitants of Mexico, this painting has a very intimating space. The body is twisted and the bed is tipped up and that adds the feelings of helplessness and disconnection. The discomfort showed with the way she painted her body: from the waist up she turns toward the viewer; from the waist down she turns away.
This paintings is a reflection of what Frida felt when she was having miscarriage at Henry Ford hospital. There are six objects flying around her. A male fetus which is the son of her and Diego she has longed to have. The fetus which is based on a medical illustration. An orchid which looks like an uterus. The stomach she hold against to the red ribbons and they looks like umbilical cords. The snail is the symbol of the slowness of the operation. In this self-portrait, Memory, the Heart 1937, Frida Kahlo expressed her misery and resent over the affair happened two years ago between Diego Rivera and Cristina. In this painting, her face has no expression but with all tears. She cropped her hair and was wearing the European-style clothes, which style was her favorite when she was separated from Diego Rivera. And as always, she use the physical wounds to imply her psychic injuries.
In the background was her schoolgirl outfit and her Tehuana costume and each set of clothes has one arm, with Frida Kahlo standing there without arms and seems helpless. She stands there with one food on the ground and the other in the sea. The foot put over the sea wears an apparatus and suggested the recent food surgery she was undergoing. Memory, the Heart delivered a direct and simple meaasge: she was heart broken. Her huge heart lies on the ground at her feet and was pumping rivers of blood in the the background landscape. Her body was pierced bu a steel rod with seesawing cupids on either end, which created an accurate visualization of the sensation of pain. In this painting, Roots, 1943, Frida stated her faith that all life can join in a single flow. In this painting, Frida is depicted as her torso opens up like a window and gives birth to a vine. It's her dream of being able to give birth as a childless woman. Frida's blood circulates the vine and reach beyond the leaves' veins and feed the parched earth. She is dreaming to be a tree of life with her elbow supporting her head on a pillow. Also with her Cathloc religion background it's possible she is trying to mimic Christ's sacrifice by having her blood flowing to the grape vine. This implication of a sacrificial victim is also reflected in a few of her other paintings.
This painting can also be compared with another Frida's painting, My Nurse and I. These two are a reversal of each other. In My Nurser and I Frida is a baby who was feed by the Mexican woman using her breasts looks like plant. In Roots it is adult Frida is nourishing Mexican earth. But in this painting, there are some danger to the artist's dream of fulfillment: a crevasse is opening next to Frida on the ground. Which is an implication that her dream might be waken pretty soon.
In 1938 Frida painted two similar paintings with the same subject. This painting depicted a little girl, which is believed to be Frida herself at age of four, was wearing a skull mask. This kind of mask is a tradition at the annual Mexican festival "Day of the Dead" where death is celebrated instead of mourned. The little is holding a yellow blossom in her hands which resembles the tagete bloom that Mexicans put on graves at the "Day of the Dead" festival. She stands on an empty vast field under a gloomy sky all by herself. By her feet there is a carved wooden tiger mask, which is a similar one hanging in the dinning room of Frida's house. Both masks seems not appropriate for the innocent tiny little girl and are symbols or hint for the cruelty of her destiny. After Frida returned to Mexico from the United States, she was staying in bed for a while and then wearing a steel corset for eight months. But her health condition has been worsening instead of improving. She got sharp pains in her spine and lost her appetite due to the long-lasting pain. But she still paints and in a letter she wrote to her friend, she mentioned this painting, Tree of Hope, 1946 as "nothing but the result of the damned operation!"
In this painting, under the gloomy sky the sun and moon divided the background into two halves of light and dark. In the middle Frida was sitting there and weeping in a read Tehuana costume. Nevertheless she seems strong and confident. Behind her on a hospital trolley, lying a second Frida, who is anesthetized and her surgical incisions still open and dripping with blood. Frida was holding a pink orthopedic corset while sitting in the wooden chair. In her another hand she was holding a flag which has words from a song ""Cielito Lindo" - "Tree of Hope, keep firm." On the flagpole, there is a red tip looks like a surgical instrument stained with blood, or a paintbrush dipped in red paint. The barren landscape behind her has two fissures which is metaphor of the wounds on her back. Frida painted this painting for her patron Eduardo Morillo Safa. In a letter to him Frida mentioned: "There is a skeleton (or death) that flees in the face of my will to live." But she later removed the skeleton to please Eduardo. But she cannot eliminate the menace of death. In this portrait, by putting two Frida's images together, one is a victim of botched tragedy, the other is the heroic survivor, Frida used it as a retablo and an act of faith. Frida takes charge of her destiny and become her own saver and hero. This painting was painted at the year of 1945, when Frida Kahlo was forced to be fed by prescription of her doctor. In the back of this painting Frida Kahlo wrote down the following explanation:
"Not the least hope remains to me...Everything move in time with what the belly contains. ” At that time Frida Kahlo was suffered from a lack of appetite due to her many surgeries and numerous illnesses. She became very think and malnourished. Her doctor, Dr Eloesser, prescribed her complete bed rest and a forced fattening diet of puréed food every two hours. In this painting, Frida Kahlo depicts what she went through with the "forced feeding" diet. The disgusting food with animals and skulls was hold by the wooden structure which used to hold her canvases for painting. It seems her arms are pinned underneath and cannot help with the situation. The back ground is deserted Mexican landscape showing both the sun and the moon. The situation seems to be Without Hope. After more than three years staying in America, Frida started wanting to go back to Mexico desperately. But her husband, Diego Rivera, was enjoying the fame and popularity he got from this country and didn't want to go back. This painting is the result of this conflict. Frida Kahlo was trying to depict the superficiality of American capitalism. This painting is filled with the icons of modern industrial society of United States but implied the society is decaying and the fundamental human values are destructed. In contrast to this painting, her husband Diego Rivera was working on a mural in the Rockefeller Center to prove his approval of the industrial progress in America.
Not like her other paintings with her face always shows up, this painting is missing the focal point of Frida Kahlo. She only draws her dresses hanging there empty and alone with the chaos in background. It seems she was saying "I may be in America but only my dress hangs there my life is in Mexico." Frida began this painting while still in New York and completed it after she and Diego came back to Mexico. She marked this painting on the back in chalk and included the engraving: "I painted this in New York when Diego was painting the mural in Rockefeller Center". The painting was given to Frida's trusted medicinal consultant Dr. Leo Eloesser of San Francisco. At the point when Dr. Eloesser passed on in 1976, he willed the painting to his long time friend Joyce Campbell. In 1993, Campbell sold the painting only before there was a boom market for Kahlo's works. This painting, The Bus, clearly shows Diego Rivera's influence on Frida Kahlo's political attitudes. In this painting, a few people are sitting side by side on a wooden bench of a rickety bus. They are representatives of different classes of Mexican society. From left to right, there are a housewife holding her shopping basket, a blue-collar guy in his work overall, a barefoot Indian mother who is feeding her baby, a little boy looking around, a businessman holding his money bag and a young girl which might be Frida herself. In this painting, Frida demonstrated her sympathy for the dispossessed. She painted the Indian mother as Madonna-like and the blue-eyed gringo is a representation for the capitalists.
This painting is also a depiction of the bus accident which happened in 1925 and changed her life forever. "I suffered two grave accidents in my life," Frida Kahlo once said. "One in which a streetcar knocked me down. . . . The other accident is Diego." Diego and Frida's union was both carnal and comradely. The most powerful bond between the two are their admiration for each other's art. Diego is the greatest artist to her and she called him the "architect of life." To Diego, Frida was "a diamond in the midst of many inferior jewels" and "the best painter of her epoch." Diego's encouragement and critics of her art was essential to Frida Kahlo, and part of her impetus to paint came from her desire to please him. She was, he said, a better artist than he, and he loved to tell of Pablo Picasso's reaction to Frida's work. "Look at those eyes," Picasso is said to have written to Rivera, "neither you nor I are capable of anything like it." In this painting, Frida depicts an innocent pretty girl who seems get lost in the desert. The background of this portrait is divided night and day. This is a common background Frida liked to use in some of her other paintings. On the left side is moon and under it is Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan. On the right side is the sun and under the sun is the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.
The young girl wears a shawl around her shoulders giving the indication that the sun is chilly. In her grasp she was holding a camouflaged model military plane which may be a symbol of the World War II. Frida was not able to bear children because of the bus accident happened to her in the year of 1925. As a substitutes for kids she collected many dolls and pets like monkeys, dogs, birds and even ad deer. In this painting Frida painted herself with one of her Itzcuintli dogs. This kind of dog is very rare and expensive.
Frida was known to frequently get security and affection from her pets to fill her loneliness without children. But in this painting, she seems distant from the pet dog and have no connections. She was sitting here with a cigarette in her hand with a relaxed and elegant attitude. She wears a black dress with the gloomy background which is a revelation of her mood of loneliness. But the expression on her face is seductive and sensual. A X-ray taken while this painting was consistently restored uncovered a prior work underneath, emphasizing little birds and plants around a lake. In many ways, Kahlo lived two lives: one as the wife of Diego Rivera, and the second as an eccentric and talented painter in her own right. During the majority of her painting career, however, the artist was seen in Rivera's shadow and it wasn't until late in life that the artist gained an international clientele and exhibition program. This early double-portrait was painted by Kahlo in celebration of her marriage to Rivera and accentuates Kahlo's interest in reconciling her identity as his wife rather than as an artist of equal status. Rivera holds a palette and paint brushes, symbolic of his artistic mastery, while Kahlo's short stature and lack of artistic accoutrements limits her role to his wife. Kahlo furthermore dresses in costume typical of the Mexican woman, or "La Mexicana," wearing a traditional red shawl known as the rebozo and jade Aztec beads. The positioning of the figures echoes that of traditional marital portraiture where the wife is placed on her husband's left to indicate her lesser moral status as a woman.
This self-portrait shows Kahlo as an androgynous figure. Scholars have seen this gesture as a confrontational response to Rivera's demand for a divorce, revealing the artist's injured sense of female pride and her self-punishment for the failures of her marriage. The cropped hair also presents a nuanced expression of the artist's identity. She holds one cut braid in her left hand while the hair from a second one lies scattered on the floor. The braids were a central element in Kahlo's identity as the traditional La Mexicana, and in the act of cutting off her braids, she rejects her former identity. The hair strewn about the floor echoes an earlier self-portrait painted as the Mexican folkloric figure La Llorana, here ridding herself of these female attributes. Finally, Kahlo inscribed the lyrics and music of a song that declares cruelly, "Look, if I loved you it was for your hair, now that you are hairless, I don't love you anymore," confirming Kahlo's own denunciation and rejection of her female roles.
The frontal position and direct stare of Kahlo in this self-portrait directly confronts and engages the viewer. The artist wears Christ's unraveled crown of thorns as a necklace that digs into her neck, signifying her self-representation as a Christian martyr and the enduring pain from her failed marriage. A dead hummingbird, a symbol in Mexican folkloric tradition of luck charms for falling in love, hangs in the center of her necklace. A black cat - symbolic of bad luck and death - crouches behind her left shoulder, and a spider monkey gifted from Rivera, symbolic of evil, is included to her right. Kahlo frequently employed flora and fauna in the background of her bust length portraits to create a tight, claustrophobic space, using the symbolic element of nature to simultaneously compare and contrast the link between female fertility with the barren and deathly imagery of the foreground.
This still life is exemplary of Kahlo's late work. More frequently associated with her psychological portraiture, Kahlo painted still lifes throughout her career depicting produce and objects native to Mexico and painted many small-scale still lifes as she grew progressively ill. The anthropomorphism of the fruit in this composition is symbolic of Kahlo's projection of pain into the composition as her health deteriorated at the end of her life. In contrast with the tradition of the cornucopia signifying plentiful and fruitful life, the arrangement of fruit in the composition reveals the fleshy and overripe interiors of the fruit, alluding to the dualism of life and death. A small Mexican flag bearing the affectionate and personal inscription "Painted with all the love of Frida Kahlo," is stuck into a prickly pear, signaling Kahlo's use of the fruit as an emblem of personal expression. During this period, the artist was heavily reliant on drugs and alcohol to alleviate her pain resulting in a lack of precision and a naively constructed composition.
Pain and suffering is a constant topic in Frida's painting. In this painting, The Broken Column, Frida expressed her anguish ans suffering in a most straightforward and horrifying way. The nails are stuck into her face and whole body. A split in her torso which looks like an earthquake fissure. In the background is the earth with dark ravines. At the beginning she paint herself nude but later covered her lower part up with something looks like a hospital sheet. A broken column is put in place of her spine. The column appears to be on the verge of collapsing into rubble. Penetrating from loins to chin, the column looks phallic, and the sexual connotation is all the more obvious because of the beauty of Frida's breasts and torso.
This painting Frida looks pretty and strong. Although her whole body is supported by the corset, she is conveying a message of spiritual triumph. She has tears on her face but she look straight ahead and is challenging both herself and her audience to face her situation. The style of this painting is very unique. She laid down each stoke firmly to build a simple and clear image. There are no virtuoso flourishes of the brush and the colors are as neatly contained within contours. This painting has another name of "What the Water Gave Me". In one conversation with her friend Julien Levy she explained this painting as: "It is an image of passing time about time and childhood games in the bathtub and the sadness of what had happened to her in the course of her life".
Not like most of her other painting, this painting doesn't have a dominant main focus. It has some symbolic representations for the various events in Frida's life. It also incorporates many other elements from her other paintings. Although Frida Kahlo never considered herself a "Surrealist" this work is painted in a "surrealistic" style. In the water the reflections are her images of life and death, happiness and sadness, comfort and pain, as well as her past and present. In the middle of these images lying Frida herself. She seems drowned in her imagination and blood was coming out from her month. One of Kahlo's early works, the ‘Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress’ suggests an influence and knowledge of European art. The elongation of the hands and neck recalls the Mannerist portraits of Bronzino, while the turbulent waves in the background suggest the deep emotional turmoil that can be found in the ice blue self portrait by Van Gogh in the Musée d'Orsay.
Kahlo began to deny quite obvious European influences such as Surrealism, as she, along with Rivera, became a driving force of the ‘Mexicanidad’ movement which sought to increase the status of Mexican culture and decrease the Spanish influence from Europe. She started to wear traditional Mexican costumes and braided her hair with ribbons, flowers and jewellery to identify with indigenous Mexican culture. The imagery and colours in her paintings were also changed to reflect this national pride. Although initially a self-taught painter from a humble background, she was, through her relationship with Diego Rivera, moving in the most fashionable and influential social circles. However, between 1930 and 1934, Kahlo and Rivera moved to the USA to escape political persecution due to their Communist sympathies. During that time she fell pregnant twice and lost the child on both occasions, ultimately due to complications resulting from her streetcar injuries. The subjects of her paintings from this point onwards deal increasingly with her feelings about loss, infertility, pain and alienation. In the 1950’s, Kahlo’s health seriously declined and the technical quality of her work suffered. Several spinal operations left her crippled with pain and she was confined to a wheelchair. 'Self-Portrait with the Portrait of Dr. Farill' (1951) is typical of this final period of her work. This double portrait, where she sits in her wheelchair holding her brushes and palette adjacent to her painting of her surgeon Dr. Farill, is a statement about the nature of her art. "My painting carries with it the message of pain ... Painting completed my life." A section of her heart replaces the palette on her lap, while her paintbrushes drip with blood, leaving the viewer in no doubt about their importance to her existence.
The fusion of Christian and Aztec imagery is common in Mexican culture. In her ‘Self-Portrait’ above, Kahlo portrays herself as a Christ like victim where the crown of thorns is replaced by a necklace of thorns with a hummingbird 'medallion'. The Aztec god 'Huitzilopochtli' is often depicted as a hummingbird.
The subject matter, like much of Soto's work, is a monster that has human-like characteristics, inhabiting a desolate land that resembles our earth. It could be a futuristic earth or a made up world, but the connection to humanity and our environment is undeniable. The figure in the foreground is crammed in a ship that seems to over between a desolate landscape and a polluted, yet bright sky. The landscape below is a gray and blue expanse of barren mountains that jut out towards the creature in the ship and the blue sky. The sky turns from blue to green, as Soto uses his trademark swirls and graffiti inspired circles and spirals, making it look like pollution, here. There is also a stream of exhaust coming from the back of the ship, making it appear to hover, as if it cannot completely leave the empty land it comes from, yet cannot continue skyward, to someplace new and of promise. The sky, despite its green, polluted atmosphere is bright and there are white clouds that linger about the ship, hopeful in the contrast to the greens and blues. Behind the figure that sits in the ship, there is another, more vibrant green in the shape of tree branches that come out like a shadow. Also included is an arm that echoes the figures own arm and points skywards toward the distance. The sails and flags of the ship fly above the figure and the shadows behind him. The flags seem to have a lot of motion in them, as if they are joyously waving in the wind, waiting for the ships arrival; whereas the sails, though full, seem smaller than the rest of the figures in the composition. In comparison to the large body stuffed into the ship, they seem minuscule, as if they are not large enough to support the ship and its voyagers.
The front panel of the Great Lyre sound box (c. 2600-2500 BCE, shown left) is an example of Sumerian art from the Ancient Near East.The panel is divided into four different registers. These registers contain four scenes with figures (mostly animals) involved in various activities. Despite the rather rigid compartmentalization of the four sound box scenes, the overall effect of the front panel of the Great Lyre sound box is one of energy and dynamism. Such energy can be seen in the color of the figures and in curvy compositional lines.
The sound box is comprised of two different colors, a dark black and a light tan. These colors are caused by the medium of the panel. Dark black is the color of bitumen, which is used for the background of the panel and lines. Light tan is the color of the inlaid shell that is used for the bodies of the figures and objects. The stark contrast of light tan against a dark background adds a sense of dynamism to the figures. The figures seem to glow and hum with life. Furthermore, these lightly-colored figures are pushed closer toward the viewer, away from the black background, which gives the figures a sense of presence and energy. The composition of the figures also lends itself to this idea of energy. The figures fill the whole space of their respective registers and scenes, giving them a strong, energetic presence. In fact, some figures strain and twist so that their bodies can fill and fit within the register space. Such dynamic twisting is especially seen in the two bulls in the upper-most register. These bulls are symmetrically placed on either side of a central human figure, creating a "Master of the Animals" motif. The bodies of the bulls twist inward toward the human figure, and but their necks and heads twist outward and slightly downward. The theme of curves and energy is underscored in the beards and hair of these three figures: each lock of hair ends with a bouncy curl. Energy can be seen in the curvaceous lines of other figures as well. In the second register from the top, the backs and tails of the hyena and lion are comprised of swooping lines. In fact, the lines of the lion's back are reinforced and highlighted by swooping, short lines that suggest the lion's bushy mane. While the lion's mane swoops toward the center of the scene, the lion's lower back curves in the other direction. These opposing compositional lines give the panel an added sense of energy and movement. In the second register from the bottom, the back of the bear curves upward and downward in a lyrical, dynamic swoop. In fact, the whole body of the bear is placed at a more dynamic angle, since the bear is leaning toward the lyre placed on the left side of the scene. Some of the strings of the lyre curve upward toward the right, opposite the angle of the bear's body, to add more opposing movement and dynamism to the overall composition. The lowest register of the front panel contains some of the most dynamic curves and lines. The most obvious curve is found in the tail of the scorpion man on the left side of the scene. This tail curls and swoops upward, only to end with a stinger that loops downward. The shape and detail lines of the scorpion tail are also energetic. The tail is comprised of several oval shapes of decreasing sizes. These shapes are combined together to creating a visually dynamic, bouncy outline for the tail. Furthermore, the tail is full of energy because of the multiple lines that appear within each oval shape. These lines look a little like a maze or labyrinth; they visually reinforce the idea of movement through their repetition and interlocking layout. The front panel of the Great Lyre sound box embodies energy in many ways. This energy can be seen not only because of the colors of the panel, but also through several compositional devices and lines. Such visual interest in energy is fitting for this piece, given that this sound box originally hummed with musical vibrations and the energy created by sound. Rembrandt's "Self Portrait" in the East Wing of the National Gallery is a startling painting. Rembrandt placed his face in the upper two thirds of the canvas which is 33¼" by 26". It was painted in 1656. Artists usually paint themselves well dressed, happy, sitting at an easel, working. In this painting, however, Rembrandt looks inexpressibly sad, timeworn, and defeated. While everything else is in shadow, the face is illuminated as if it attracts all the light. His face is softening with age; his unruly hair is tinged with gray. His eyes look out, capturing and pinning me the moment I see it. I feel as if I had disturbed him while he was painting. His coat looks dull, nondescript. In contrast to other self-portraits where Rembrandt painted himself in finery, in this painting he looks like he is wearing an old coat, and an old hat. The color and quality of his clothing adds to the somber mood of the painting.
His hands are not visible. In fact, no skin other than his face is visible. Perhaps his hands would have taken some of the light away from his face, and he wanted to draw the audience's attention immediately to his face. It is as though he meant to emphasize the importance of his facial expression and the lines in his face, and de-emphasize the importance of everything else. It looks like he's just turned around to see who entered the room-- and he'd rather not have been interrupted from his thoughts. The only other form that captures any light is the curved form in the lower portion of the painting. It is possible that shape is his palette. Rembrandt made a self-portrait almost every year of his life, beginning about age twenty. The early portraits depict a smiling, self-confident, prosperous Rembrandt. These were probably intended to be advertisements of his skill to attract commissions. Clearly this painting was not designed to attract commissions. Perhaps this painting's intent was to capture a more honest, uncensored truth of the artist's life. He could have made himself look however he wanted, but he chose this somber pose. Though we do not absolutely know why he depicted himself in this dark way, we must assume that Rembrandt was certainly trying to both evoke and express a feeling of uncomfortable defeat. Perhaps Rembrandt has painted the reality of his life-- a dimly lit, cold room; worn, dark clothes; a pensive, tired expression-- and his current emotional state without hiding behind flashy clothes and bright colors. The artwork, which is vertical in its organization, is made up of six strips of color and floral fabric running in a vertical direction. On the left three squares, each with a different subject, line up again in a vertical fashion each with a different background color which are (in descending order) orange, green and red. The orange square contains a revolver/gun, the green square contains a sporting event scene, and the red contains a rose, all of which are line drawings in black. Overlapping the lower portion of the orange square is a smaller square canvas representing what looks like a still life of lemons and other fruit with a pink background. On the green square Strause has again placed a smaller canvas with a fruit-like composition, this one with a blue background. Above the orange square appear four red circles beginning at the top and extending horizontally
stopping at the mid-point. Taking up the entire right side of the work is a still life of a flower arrangement sitting on a stool. Throughout the piece, Strause has used a wide range of bright colors. In the flower arrangement, Strause has used an intense blue line which outlines the flowers and the stool, perhaps this use of color in the line is intended to push the subject forward on the two-dimensional space, making it stand out. The line looks to have been made with a pastel medium, with its less than solid appearance. The flowers themselves are depicted using organic shapes to give the illusion of an iris and other flowers. The overall use of color and shape is simplistic, yet true to the nature of each particular flower. The flowers seem to reach out past the squares at the left, which seem to be on the top of the flowers since one just sees the stems on the other side. Mass doesn’t seem to be important to Strause, as she has used the indication of three-dimensionality only sparingly with a hint of highlight on a few flowers and on the clear glass vase holding them. Another effect used to show three-dimensionality is the shadow left by the arrangement, green in color, and the stools legs receding by being higher than the legs in the foreground. Again, the attempt seems to be a crude one, as though a naturalistic portrayal was not important. The large vertical panel of the floral fabric gives a sense of texture to the background of the flower arrangement, as does the energetic application of the paint in both the fruit and the flowers. Balance is achieved, although asymmetrical, by the large flower arrangement on the right and the squares on the left. Although the left side of the artwork has more geometric shapes and the right side has more organic shapes, indicating variety, Strause has achieved a sense of unity with her use of color. The orange, green and red of the squares are utilized in the colors of the flowers and also the shadow of the vase. This use of a wide range of colors is another sign of variety in the piece. The focal point in the work is the flower arrangement, which is quite large on the canvas and is “pushed” forward in space by the use of the intense blue line emphasizing the contours of shapes of the flowers, vase and the stool. There is a wide range of media used in this artwork, including: oil paint, silk screen, fabric, and pastel. This shows the adeptness of the artist in a variety of media. The subjects inside the squares on the left of the painting are applied using a silkscreen method. The use of line here appears more carefully planned, showing the precision of the artist. The backgrounds of both the red and green squares are more carefully applied, in that the boxes are filled by the color, than that of the orange square with its unfinished appearance. The four red circles arranged horizontally across the tops of the left side of the painting are also painted as if left unfinished. The silk screen shows Strause’s accuracy in drawing, while truthfully creating the likeness of a rose. Her technique in applying the oil paint varies in the artwork. At times, the paint is carefully applied leaving no spaces, such as within the red and green squares. In other cases, Strause’s application of the paint seems more erratic and quick such as the orange square and the flowers. This gives a feeling of action and enthusiasm, unlike the feeling of easiness in carefully applied paint. As I sit and stare at Strause’s work of art, I ponder the title: Your Turn. Looking at the colors used in the square panels on the left (red, green, orange), I notice that these colors are like the colors of a stoplight. The orange being seemingly unfinished suggests quickness in the paint’s application, perhaps implying the quickness at which people speed through an orange light. Also, the color orange is synonymous with “caution” and inside the orange square is a gun. This combination is a powerful suggestion of warning. In the green square, there is a scene of men running with a ball, which exemplifies motion. Both the green color and the action of the scene suggest “go”. The red square contains a rose, of which most people associate with the color red. Where Strause has used items in the previous squares that go along with the stoplight theory, the rose seems to be a different matter. It doesn’t overtly suggest “stop” as would the red of a stoplight. However, red is also symbolic of “love”, which could mean a stopping point in the search for love or red symbolizes blood which when lost in great quantities could mean the stopping of life. The four red circles at the top left arranged horizontally stopping at the middle, can also go along with the stop light theory. The circles seem to be a representation of blinking lights, which is another type of stoplight. The vertical stripes in the background could possibly convey roadways. All of this traffic signal symbolization leads us back to the title of the piece—Your Turn. At stoplights, people take turns moving across the intersection perhaps that is the reason for the title. However, the flower arrangement, colossal in size, takes up most of the space and seems to be the most important subject of the piece. The blue line used to outline the shapes appears neon-like forcing the arrangement to move forward in space and to gain the attention of the viewer. These two aspects alone imply that it is the focus of the artist’s intent. All said, I believe that Strause is conveying her concept of life. She shows us the “traffic signals” and “highway” verticals as a way of portraying the fast paced life most of us lead. As life is being represented in the squares, Strause is suggesting that this life we lead does indeed produce a product (i.e. the fruits of our labors) in the fruit laid on top of the underlying squares. The intense flower arrangement is what she is really trying to convey as a thought, with its immense size and bright colors. It is, perhaps, her way of saying that we should stop and smell the flowers making sure we are enjoying life as we journey through existence. |
Kailani Del Rio is an aspiring graphic designer.
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