Painting On The Upper Left example essay topic

When one thinks of a portrait, perhaps one of the many paintings that flash by is that of Leonardo da Vinci: the Mona Lisa. But in fact, portraits do not have just one style. The subject does not have to be seated facing a certain way so that the artist can take advantage of the "curving" effect. It can be of a man, a woman, a god, or a child, religious or secular, idealized, or abstract. In Portrait of a Man and a Woman at a Casement, Fra Filippo Lippi portrays a man and his wife somewhat facing each other.

Although they are man and wife, they do not look intimate, and in fact, do not appear to be looking at each other. Because the woman is bigger in scale compared to the man, she seems closer to us. Moreover, everything recedes from her: the background seen through the window gives us an illusion of depth. The artist's emphasis is on the wife: we see only part of the profile and hands of the husband. Why is more than half of the painting covered by only the woman? This painting was supposed to have been a commemoration of a wedding or the birth of a child.

If this painting was about a birth of a child, it certainly makes sense that Fra Lippi gave more importance to the mother figure. He pays great attention to her dress and jewelry although we cannot see at all what her husband is wearing except for his "hat" (head-covering? ). The female is idealized in that she has the characteristic Rennaissance smoothness and roundness. The man is looking inside, and the woman is looking outside through what we perceive to be a door. It is not drawn, but based on the light source, which is coming from the top left - we can tell because of the shadow that the husband's face casts on the back wall - it seems like it is a door, and that the woman is looking outside at the world, thinking of the baby that is to see and share it with her.

Overall, the painting is done in such a way that we feel like we " re looking at the two people through a frame or a window as well. Rembrandt's Flora idealizes the woman figure as well. She has a double chin, but her skin is smooth and her figure is round. This idealization is appropriate because Flora is the goddess of spring.

Goddesses are not supposed to look like real humans. She looks neither young nor old. However, Flora also looks human because her overall composition derives from Rembrandt's portraits of Saskia, his wife. Rembrandt uses elaborate drapery, especially at the sleeves. Rembrandt uses impasto where the sleeves bunch up, creating not just an illusion but also a physical texture. Her skirt looks long and full, and her blouse seems somewhat transparent, especially where the light hits her.

The light is coming from the top left, creating a shadow on her face from her bonnet. Her hands are in shadow, and in her right hand, Flora holds some flowers that are (probably) withering and dying. Flora looks down at them, and knows that flowers, youth, beauty, and love do not last. Don Manuel Or sio Man rique de Zuniga by Goya is a portrait of a young boy who has already died. The child wears a red jumpsuit with elaborate lacy sleeves and collar, fancy shoes and sash. The light is coming in almost as if there is a door being opened, and through the crack the hallway light shines inside an otherwise pitch-black room.

It is as if the light is only temporary, and as soon as the door closes, the child will be left in darkness with the three wide-eyed cats, magpie, and finches in a cage. In that sense, the room functions almost as a cage itself: the child is left there to play by himself. In Baroque art, caged birds are symbolic of innocence, and if he is caged as well, he also symbolizes innocence. He is playing with his pet magpie which holds Goya's calling card in its beak.

Everything about him is black or gray: he is the only source of "color" in the picture. The child almost has a halo effect for his face is much whiter than his hands. He is the source of innocence in this portrait, vulnerable to the world. C'ezanne's Madame C'ezanne in a Red Dress differs greatly probably because of the era it was painted in. It is more abstract, and the lines to not recede to any certain point, creating a rather disturbing, two dimensional illusion. Nothing is drawn "to scale".

For example, the woman's wais is too thin compared to her upper torso. She is supposed to be seated, yet the yellow "chair" doesn't look like a chair at all, but a board. The lines of the wall do not match up with the painting on the upper left or with anything else. It is too slanted, almost as if it is on a different plane, like cubism. This woman is not idealized at all. In fact, she looks pale and bluish, and covered with dust, almost as if she is a doll that had been in storage for a while.

Her clothes are faded, she has no jewelry, and her face is not symmetrical. Symmetry and beauty often go hand in hand, and clearly, C'ezanne was not after her beauty in this portrait. There is no real sense of unity in the painting, no unifying color. However, the enormous curtain keeps the painting in, framing the woman..