Harvest Moon by Aba Bayefsky - Essay Example

Here Here Here Here Harvest Moon by Aba Bayefsky The oil painting, Harvest Moon, was painted by the Toronto born and based artist Aba Bayefsky in 1992. The piece was a part of his private collection at his estate and is now on exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Harvest Moon is typical of Bayefsky's work; it's a painting that portrays an eerie night with a full moon hovering over a "haunted house," jack-o-lanterns and bats. A typical Halloween painting that conveys darkness and the unknown. Bayefsky was an official war artist during World War II, during this time he was exposed to death and depression and this influenced his work greatly. Through out his career there is a recurring theme of destruction, skeletons and dark symbols. His choice of rich, bold colors cause the subject matter to jump out of the canvas, but at the same time, the subject is locked into it's environment and the piece moves as a solid and single unit. This essay will explore the painting, Harvest Moon, by first discussing the initial reactions to the piece upon preliminary examination at the gallery. Later, the essay will investigate the formal elements of art, such as line, shape, space, composition, light, color and style, and how they interplay to create a haunting feeling for the viewer by drawing upon the familiarity of the subject matter and turning it into an expressionist piece of work that evokes emotion and a response. When first encountering this piece of work it's simple and rather typical physical size doesn't instantaneously capture the audience's attention, especially in comparison to the surrounding works that are much bigger in scale. What's captivating about this piece is how the viewer is drawn toward it for curiosity's sake of wondering what's inside the house, what's behind the jack-o-lanterns and what the artist is possibly hiding. The soft lighting in the gallery creates a warm feeling that counteracts the "scary" images so that a sense of safety is felt amongst the gruesome images in the exhibit. In examining the painting the slick quality of the oil paints are apparent and one would imagine it would be slippery and smooth to the touch with prickly peaks that terminate each stroke. The carved expressions of the jack-o-lantern's faces appear hollowed out just as if they were real pumpkins but these are a hollowing of paint instead of the true pulp. In general, the nine jack-o-lanterns wear uniform expressions that aren't jolly nor sinister, but more vacant and void if anything. Looking straight on at the painting gives a rather flat view, but by approaching the work from the left or the right it seems as though the jack-o-lanterns' eyes are following movement and beckoning the viewer to stop and reconsider it's mysticism. Line in this painting is very straightforward. The lines of the two houses ran horizontally across the top of the canvas, but once one reaches the lower half of the canvas these lines are interrupted by waves, or peaks that divide the houses from the jack-o-lanterns. These waves suggest a division between the two objects, the houses, and the jack-o-lanterns. For an oil painting, the outline of the objects is quite crisp and thin, almost as if the painter were using a printed coloring book that already had the outline, and the painter was left to fill in the empty spaces with paint. The diagonal lines that make up the house's awning direct the viewer's eye to the jack-o-lanterns in the foreground, forcing the eye to forget the homes and instead meditate on the orange of the pumpkins. The straight lines of the house are juxtaposed against the wavy lines of the clouds in the sky creating a balance or harmony between the two so that the painting is not too rigid, nor too flimsy. Shape is rather flat in this piece. In this two-dimensional piece of work shape is primarily offered to the pumpkins, as they appear plump and hearty. The painting is made up of simple geometric shapes that contain the painting to single solid unit. The rectangular features of the houses and the slats of the awning, the square-shaped windows, as well as the roundness of the pumpkins are clear to the viewer, as they are objects that are familiar to the non-artist. Space is conveyed by the use of solid objects that appear to just fit on the canvas. The negative space in the upper left-hand corner is still rich in depth because of the use of hazy clouds and a full moon that consumes the sky. Bayefsky has isolated the positive space so that the subject is packed into the canvas as if it is a snapshot of the neighborhood and the viewer can imagine what exists beyond the canvas; a dark place full of mystery and risk. As for mass and volume, the group of jack-o-lanterns fills the bottom of the canvas creating a deep and lush arena for the eyes to get lost in. The houses in the background convey some special recession in that one is inquiring to know what is hiding behind the windows and doors. A hint of light glowing in the windows creates curiosity as one wonders if the grim-reaper is up to no good behind closed doors. The space between the orange pumpkins and the orange light in the windows is deep and solid. The composition is asymmetrical and leans to the right hand-side because of the houses that tower over the jack-o-lanterns. Balance is created by the use of the diagonal lines of the awning to draw the eye toward the left, as well as the moon that hangs from the upper left-hand corner. This is an example of the interaction of the formal elements creating a focal point, which is the field of jack-o-lanterns. Line, shadow, and space come together to create a mystical and intriguing work all packed onto the lower right-hand side of the apparent heavy canvas. The light in Harvest Moon is dark and dramatic overall, something very characteristic of Bayefsky's work. However, at the horizon line, wedged in between a house and a billboard of some kind portraying a bat, there is a distant white light. This white light makes one believe that there is hope beyond, and that maybe further yonder one can escape from the dreary house that is initially presented on the canvas. Overall, the light is rather disturbing as it is so dark in the foreground that the viewer wonders what may be lurking behind. However, it is a gentle hazy light that creates unity across the whole piece. Even though there is a full moon, the moon only allows a view of the obvious. It is the absence of light that accounts for the majority of Harvest Moon that creates tension in this piece and the presence of light, the small glimpse of light on the horizon line that gives hope. Colors in this piece are rich to an extreme. The balance of the blues and blacks create uniformity and depth. The cool watery blues are almost soothing to look at as they bleed into the cold sky in the night. The dark almost black blue of the houses are intense. The presence of the cool colors is immediately halted as the orange jack-o-lanterns are in essence, smeared on top of the dominant blues and blacks. The use of the warm orange over the other aforementioned colors cause the jack-o-lanterns to jump out of the page, regardless of the other formal art elements used to bring them to the focal point. The use of color in not just this piece, but in his other pieces as well, is very dominant in Bayefsky's style as he is able to give vibrancy to often-morbid themes. The style of this piece is definitely unique to Bayefsky's normally nonrepresentational style. Harvest Moon is surely representational in that the subject matter is easily recognizable; house, moon, bat, pumpkin, it's quite simple. However, although it is representational it is still an expressionist piece of work as there is subjective representation. The viewer can feel Bayefsky's intention and emotion in this piece. His work always portrays the doom and gloom of society, and even though this is a Halloween piece that traditionally is a holiday for mischievous children out trick or treating, the sinister-like undertones are apparent. The viewer easily relates to the work as it is characteristic of the annual holiday in North America, in a sense it could be considered Bayefsky's way of appealing to the masses so to speak by taking a familiar environment and creating fear. In conclusion, Harvest Moon is a classic Bayesfsky piece of art where inner feelings of doom, depression and mystery are suggested. Harvest Moon reveals the elements of line, color, space and shape to create an expressionist piece that evokes an emotion of fear from the viewer. There is no doubt that Aba Bayefsky's experiences during World War II still influenced his work decades later. Bayefsky is able to acknowledge the fact that mankind shares a similar core of symbols and meanings and this allows him to speak to the social consciousness of the viewers of his work. Halloween is a typical holiday in North America, but even people in other parts of the world who don't practice this holiday are all too familiar with the frightening images of the bat (silhouette of the vampire) the ghastly faces of the jack-o-lanterns (ghouls, goblins and gargoyles) and the dark towering houses that can be found on any street around the world. Harvest Moon can speak to many an audience for the simple fact that it is familiar and appeals to its social consciousness. Read More