4 Types Of Art And Artists Essay, Research Paper

The first piece I selected is a representational oil painting by Morris Bear Squire. It is titled Buddha One. In this piece, Squire first sketched the subject onto wood, then used oil paint, gold and silver leaf, mother of pearl, and crushed egg shells to accent the painting. He then went over the image several times with lacquer. It is about 24 inches tall by 36 inches wide. I found the painting along with many other original works by Squire at: http://www.mbsart.com/gallery/vietnam/html/buddha1.html.

The painting is two-dimensional but shows mass by showing roundness and a light source. It looks as if there is a light shining on the gold face from the upper right. He uses the effect of chiaroscuro to show shadows on the face. There is also an illusion of depth caused by the black background. The most effective element he uses however is color. The color of gold is so magnificent, not only because of the lacquer but also because it is actual gold leaf. The colors of the eyes and of the background give very good contrast to the piece.

Buddha One is symmetrically balanced, showing evenness on both sides of the golden face. There is a focal within both of the eyes. It looks as though clouds were painted in the blue eyes that stand out from the golden face and the black background. As mentioned before, there is a strong contrast in colors between the face, the eyes and the background.

This piece was one of the first oil paintings I came across, but looking at the size of the piece and the sheer beauty of it stuck in my mind. Squire gave Buddha a godly presence as if having him looking down on the people of earth. Coincidentally, because I am a taller person, the look Buddha is giving is almost the same look I give in most of my pictures, looking down with slanted eyes, and closed mouth. I believe Squire painted this piece the way he did to show his spiritual views, and to give his subject a breath taking appearance.

The next piece I will be discussing is Apollo Crowning Himself by Anotnio Canova. It is a marble sculpture dated 1781, and is about 40 inches tall. The sculpture is free standing and it was carved out of a single block of marble. The sculpture is neoclassical, because it is of the Greek god Apollo, and is meant to look like an ancient sculpture while keeping techniques used in the late 18th century.

The sculpture is obviously 3-dimensional and has a fairly large form, about half the size of a person. Apollo is shown standing underneath a tree and putting a branch around his head that he had just picked. Time is stopped in this piece because he is posed. It is a nude piece that shows the beauty of the human form, and idealness of a god.

I picked this piece because I had seen it personally earlier this year at the J. Paul Getty Museum. http://mcweb.getty.edu/museum-cgi/works_frame.pl?f_wid=297&f_main_wid=289 It drew my attention because it looks as if it were an ancient Greek piece but because it s neoclassical, I can better understand who and what the artist was trying to say. The loon on Apollos face was one of sorrow and of lost love. The artist was recounting the mythical events of the Greek god Apollo. I believe the piece was made for beauty, but also to tell the moral story of Apollo. I don t feel that Canova was trying to make a statement, just wanting to give the world beauty. I apologize for my lack of details of this piece, but sculpture is hard for me to critique, and I couldn t think of much to say!

The next work of art I found is a collage. It is titled Big Bang Theory and was created by K. Lee. There is no information about the piece from the website I got it from so I will try my best to describe what and how it was made. http://www.geocities.com/ nightowl47/Tmp5.jpg. I believe that all the collages that were at the website I found are all made using graphics on a computer instead of traditional media. I am guessing that s how this collage was made as well.

The collage shows Lee s feelings on how our earth and it s children are being destroyed: by pollution and war. It sends a strong message by showing a baby s head on the body of a flea (symbolizing the end of the world). It shows pictures of garbage, and the middle east where hate wars have been going on for hundreds of years. It also shows a stop sign, which is easily recognizable as a message to stop killing ourselves and the earth.

The collage is abstract and portrays how Lee sees the world. The photographs were placed vertically on the page with one placed horizontally at the bottom. This gives the effect of the viewer standing on a mountain of garbage looking down at the war-ridden cities. The collage is physically rectangular. It doesn t really give the effect mass but it does use a twisted sort of perspective, that only a collage can give. The depth and perspective are created by the placement of the city photographs. Also, putting the monster in the foreground helps to add linear perspective to the piece. The collage gives the effect of stopped time.

The variety of the objects in the piece give a sense of chaos, but there is also unity in bringing many obscure pictures into one collage. There is also a sense of balance and vertical symmetry in the piece. Which helps to give the effect of depth and perspective. As mentioned earlier there is a strong emphasis on verticalness but the focal points seem to be jumbled around abstractly within the collage. Contrasting the monster with the city pictures helps to give more feeling of depth to the otherwise two-dimensional space.

I chose this collage because it jumped right out at me. The message is clear and to the point. I m not specifically an environmentalist, or a humanist, or a pacifist, but all of these messages seemed to slap me in the face and tell me to wake up, and to stop hurting myself and hurting my world.

The last work of art I found was a photograph by Lily Gray and is titled: Serenity at Lake Powell . This piece is a panoramic photograph taken during the day of a lone boat at lake Powell. http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/photography/senior/g3.html. Because this is a photograph of nature, it is hard to critique it. The artist did not create the subject, she merely captured one instant of it. There is a natural atmospheric perspective within the photograph. There is sand and dirt a few inches from the lens of the camera, but you can also see rock formations that are miles away. There is the effect of stopped time by showing the boat docked and ripples in the water. The natural light source (being the sun) cast shadows and bright spots within the photograph but you cannot physically see the sun. Gray was able to take the photograph when the natural colors seemed to be mild and all mixed together throughout the horizon.

There is an asymmetrical balance in the piece that follows the path of the lake all the way to the horizon of rocks. There are several focal points in the photograph as well: the boat, the small hill on the right, and the chimney shaped rock formation in the far distance. There is a well-defined contrast between the lake and the surrounding land.

The artist was trying to capture the peacefulness and tranquility of a spring afternoon at the lake. She wants us to know that we should sometimes stop to look around us, and take-it-all-in. She could ve shot less of the sky but she instead chose to include a large sky because it gives an even more breathtaking view of our beautiful world. I liked this particular photograph because I think it shows the epitome of American nature, and the way life used to and should be.