Dead Soldier, Joseph Wright

Formal Analysis Paper by Helen Yang

Artist: Joseph Wright (Wright of Derby)

Title of work: The Dead Soldier

Date: 1789

Material: Oil on Canvas

Thesis: In The Dead Soldier (1789), the artist Joseph Wright used value contrast, color contrast of red against green and thematic contrast to draw the viewers attention to the focal point of the dead soldier’s family in the foreground and to lead the viewers eyes to the harsh reality of the battle field in the background.

Visual Analysis: Wright used complementary colors of red against green to lead the viewers eyes through the painting. In the foreground the dead soldier’s coat has the most saturated shade of red color in the whole painting. This intense primary red color is set against split-complimentary green colors of the cobalt turquoise (cool green) dress worn by the widow and the olive green (warm green) army tent. The intense color contrast draws the viewers eyes to the focal point of the painting. In the middle ground we see the red wheel of the cannon, surrounded by the grass green ground and the distance trees, is still intact. However, the oval shape created by the arms and hands of the young family is forever broken due to the death of the soldier. The cannon is pointing to the battle scene in the background where more red dots of soldier raging in the battle towards the gunfires-lit red sky. 

Nadie Nos Ha Visto

Submitted by ERIN BLACKWELL

 

Goya uses extreme contrast of value in a fragmented composition to depict a world of Good and Evil, but not in a way that upholds societal convention. The Spanish painter covers his canvas in browns, blues, grays, suggestive of a warm night. Atop this underpainting he roughly daubs two figures in white — a pale monk with a boney skull and a florid man with black hair. Their two heads seem to grow from a shared white cloak. They watch a third man in a gray surplice over a black robe, as he throws back his head in unrestrained song or laughter. The three together form a single mass with three heads and two hands holding glasses full of drink. Theirs is an unholy communion, an unofficial fraternizing, a good time they ought not to be seen having. The title, Nadie nos has visto (“Nobody Saw Us”) suggests the wishful thinking of the trespasser. God saw them, Goya saw them, and now we see them, too. But do we see ourselves in them?

The Gold Scab by James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Submitted by Carol Goodman

Dangerous Beauty: James Abbott Mcneill Whistler and The Gold Scab

FIGURE A

James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
The Gold Scab:  Eruption inFrilthy Lucre (The Creditor), 1879
Oil on Canvas, 73 ½ x 55 in.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

            As a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement, James Abbott McNeill Whistler believed that “art should exist for its own sake, independent of moralizing didacticism or narrative concerns.”[1]  He was a modernist, interested in the formal aspects of art – how line, form, and color artfully arranged created a harmonious effect. Whistler wanted “a response to [his art’s] formal beauty rather than its subject matter.”[2]  In his 1879 oil on canvas painting, The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre (The Creditor) [Figure A],  Whistler ostensibly adheres to his artistic principles by using color, line, form, repetition and pattern to envelop the viewer in an initial sensation of beauty and unity.  But, in short order, Whistler pulls an audacious bait-and-switch, ditching his artistic principles, while trapping the viewer in a hellish and seemingly indecipherable mise en scène with a macabre creature.

The Grand Canal, Venice by J.M.W. Turner
Submitted by Dave Hattorimanabe

              In The Grand Canal, Venice (ca. 1830), an oil painting in the collection of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, Joseph Mallord William Turner uses a specific hue to set a focal point and then repeats that color in various saturations and shades throughout his entire cityscape to create a portrait of the sun as a vast and awe-inducing force.

              Color, in this case yellow, is the predominant element in Turner's painting and it appears in almost every inch of the canvas. Most notably, the yellow occupies the upper two-thirds of the canvas, a zone normally used to portray the sky in landscapes and cityscapes. Here in this upper section we see an asymmetrical yellow mass much like a huge blazing yellow cloud and it seems to fill the entire sky.

Scene from the French Campaign of 1814

by Emile Jean Horace Vernet

Submitted by Ioli Advani

In his 1826 oil on canvas painting titled "Scene from the French Campaign of 1814", Emile Jean Horace Vernet brilliantly uses contrasting colors, light intensity and strong lines, to immerse the viewer in the intense drama unfolding in the scene before one’s eyes. The brightly lit central figure of the woman holding her child evokes strong emotions of empathy for their plight, but the bright red hues of the burning fire in the background lure the viewer’s curiosity and forces the eye to move on. Following a circular trajectory from the young woman’s arm, passing over the chaos of the fighting soldiers and panicked animals, to the burning house, where the viewer momentarily stops to take in the devastation. Following the curved line of the smoke to the darkness of the ominous background, the feeling of despair that will dominate the future of this torn family prevails. The horizon line creates depth but also urges one to complete the circle, which ends at the lifeless body of the young woman’s husband laying at her feet. So let's take a closer look to find out what the artist is telling us about the destruction of this family's life?

The Broken Pitcher... 022621

 Submitted by Kevin Wallace

The Broken Pitcher  by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1891),  oil on canvas, on display at the Legion of Honor.

           In this artwork the painter uses contrasting dark and light colors, strong vertical and horizontal lines, balanced symmetry, and a focal point to draw the eye to the main character.

By contrasting dark and light colors the girl stands out as the main subject. The warm blue of the dress and the soft variegated browns of the shawl bring the image of the girl forward against the lighter colored fountain structure. The background with pale green and misty blue grey recedes so much as to be unimportant while still creating depth.

Landscape in the Jura         

Gustave Courbet 

submitted by Peter Geraghty

Gustave Courbet painted Landscape in the Jura around 1864.  It’s an oil painting, 28 ½ inches x 36 inches and it’s in the collection of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  Our examination of some of the elements of this painting, its forms, textures and colors will tell us about Courbet’s relationship to this landscape.

Gustave Courbet painted Landscape in the Jura around 1864.  It’s an oil painting, 28 ½ inches x 36 inches and it’s in the collection of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  We can examine some of the 'formal elements' of this painting, its forms, textures and colors and see what this might (but only might) tell us about Courbet’s relationship to this landscape.

James Tissot - Self Portrait

 submitted by Catherine Welter

 

Self Portrait – 1865

James Tissot (1836-1902)

 

 

            In 1865, James Tissot, age 29, painted his Self Portrait in oil on panel. His choice of muted autumnal tones, tightly cropped close up of head and shoulders, casual pose and direct look create a feeling of intimacy and curiosity about who this man really is. His artistic answer is purposefully ambiguous. He presents himself as a young fin de siècle sophisticate, looking directly out of the canvas with a gaze that is, by turns, knowing, intimate, world weary, and even seductive. The viewer is invited to look at this fascinating face, and then look again. How did Tissot create such a mesmerizing portrait? 

Exploiting Beauty in 19th Century French Art

submitted by Marsha Hallet

 The Broken Pitcher, 1891, oil on canvas, 53 in x 33 in
William-Adolphe Bouguereau

 

          Women and girls were a favorite theme of French genre painters during the

19^th century.  From Ingres to Jean-Léon Jérôme, to Degas, to Renoir, to William-

Adolphe Bouguereau, paintings of the female form, nude and clothed, were being

purchased by men.  Beauty, sensuality, and symbols of lost innocence were

marketing gold for the traditional academic painters of whom Bouguereau was

one of the most famous.  To quote the artist:

 One has to seek Beauty and Truth,'' he told an interviewer in 1895. ''There's only one kind of painting. It's the painting that presents the eye with perfection, the kind of beautiful and impeccable enamel you find in Veronese and Titian.[1]