Paintings by Ilya Repin, Frederic Edwin Church, Peter Paul Rubens - Essay Example

Understanding Art Comparing art, particularly from different periods and places, can help to reveal common approaches over time and place that help to convey particular moods or ideas. While there have been several periods in history where artists from a given region or working on a particular subject have following a seemingly ‘set’ approach to how to convey their ideas, these approaches can often be traced backward or forward to other periods, artists and regions. Such is the case when comparing Ilya Repin’s “The Volga Boatmen” (1870-1873), Frederic Edwin Church’s “Heart of the Andes” (1859) and Peter Paul Rubens’ “The Battle of the Amazons” (1618-1620). The earliest of these paintings is the Rubens, in which the artist depicts a battle scene carried out between the legendary female warrior clan of the Amazons with the Athenian king Theseus and his men. Presented with a color palette dominated by golds and browns, the scene is difficult to make out because Rubens generally avoids using sharp lines except in the definition of the bridge they are fighting on and the shaping of some of the horses involved. This suggests a feeling of softness even in the middle of the fighting, suggesting that the battle is somehow less fierce than it might have been if the combatants were all male. The soft shapes falling into the river have an impression of being women, indicating that they are losing the battle. Perhaps because of the softness, the mood is somehow romantic, as if this were a struggle of men and women that ends not in death but in sexual conquest. Yet there is still violence in the idea conveyed through the flame-like lines of the smoke-filled sky and other scenery. Thus it seems as if the artist intended a battle scene, but I see it as somehow less than that, a battle between the sexes that ends in something softer than death. Frederic Edwin Church’s painting, “Heart of the Andes”, also tends to use a great deal of gold to convey the image of an unspoiled segment of the Andes Mountains through which flows a small stream. There is necessarily a great deal of green involved in the image as well to depict the natural environment. Unlike the Rubens, there are no people involved in the painting and the scene is one of tranquility and peaceful nature. Lines are still mostly blurred between images and there is a general softening of the image just like in the Rubens painting. However, where Rubens’ blurring of the lines conveys a sense of constant motion, the effect in this painting is as if it were seen through a lens, a land that is both real and unreal at the same time. Again, the effect is one of romance and fantasy more than mundane reality. As a result, the artist seems to intend to capture a pristine moment in time, but I get the impression of unreality, as if this scene could never have existed just as it is seen here. Repin’s “ Volga Boatmen” depicts a scene in which a group of men seem to be harnessed together in order to manually pull a boat through shallow water. Again there is a softening of the lines as the bottom portions of the men seem to blend into each other, but there is a larger context of the pain and suffering in these men than has been seen even in the “Battle of the Amazons” because some of the characters are bowed down seemingly very close to death already. The heavy use of golds, this time as a necessary element to depict the sand on which the men are walking, again seem to evoke a sense of unreality, as if these men are living in a dream turned nightmare as the softness of the sand is converted into the hardness of the harness and the task at hand. The artist probably intended this painting to depict the tremendous suffering of the men who were pressed into action, which is largely what I see in the painting, accompanied by the ideas of oppression that such forced service suggests. While all of the paintings seem to use golden tones to help convey a sense of unreality and otherworldliness to the stories they tell, they also all speak about the struggle of reality in which people fight wars, compel others to work to death and destroy natural beauty. The sense of unreality conveyed through color and line suggest that these images are only vague glimpses of reality and there is a sense of greater meaning embedded deep within. For two of these images, the Rubens and the Repin, this undercurrent is of violence while the Church painting is one of transient peace. Johannes Vermeer painted “Woman Holding a Balance” in 1664. The image depicts a pregnant woman in contemporary clothing including a white headdress and blue jacket trimmed in white fur as she stands at a richly draped jewelry table holding a set of scales. A mall chest is open on the table with gold and pearl necklaces hanging over the edge. Behind the woman on the wall is a darkened painting of the Last Judgment with the figure of Jesus in a golden aura floating just above her head and the people being judged existing on a level even with the bottom portion of her face. There seems to be a mirror on the wall directly in front of her and a window curtained with gold cloth high up on the same wall. Vermeer creates serene balance in the painting through his use of gold on the edging of the painting on the wall, in the aura around the Jesus figure in the painting and in the light coming through the window, on the table and in the color of the woman’s skirt. All of this tends to frame the gold of the small scales in the woman’s hand. The use of deep blues also tends to frame the scales, from the blue of her jacket to the blue of the intervening space between Jesus as the judged and the blue of the fabric draped across the foreground table. The woman’s arms help the eye to focus more upon the scales as the arm holding the scales repeats the horizontal balance and the other arm rests softly on the edge of the table just underneath the scales. The woman’s downcast eyes are fixed on the scales as well, leading the eye in that direction, but could also be seen as looking upon the people being judged in the painting if it weren’t depicted as being behind her. By having everything from the frame of the painting to the highlights on the blue cloth to the woman’s eyes point to the scales, Vermeer makes them the focal point of the image and impossible to ignore despite their small size. There is no doubt in this painting that the woman is measuring the balance of something. While it may seem from the jewelry shown in front of her that she is about to measure her wealth, her resting hand indicates that whatever she is measuring is already placed on the scales. However, a close look at the scales shows there is nothing there. The fact that she is pregnant might suggest that she is attempting to determine whether her child will be a boy or girl, but this, too, seems too shallow to meet the meaning of the painting given the painting in the background. It is this image that makes me feel as if the painting is really about the woman weighing the spiritual versus the material planes. Her clothing, a blue cape and white headdress, seems to remind me of the Virgin Mary, which is reinforced by the presence of Jesus floating over her head. She stands between this image and the evidence of her personal wealth in the form of jewelry on the table and she looks down toward the scales as if she is well aware of what is most important. Through color, line, light, balance and use of space, Vermeer creates a touching timeless image of a woman on the verge of motherhood, which, in the time period in which it was painted, also meant a strong potential for sudden and violent death during the birth process. Her readiness for this step is depicted in her own self-judgment before the Last Judgment and her awareness of her own position in life, conveyed through the various symbols Vermeer puts in place as well as in the beam of light that streams through the window to illuminate her face and the edge of the scales in her hand. The pyramidal balance established in the composition of the table contents, the woman’s hands and the scales further adds stability to the image as the pyramid is considered the most stable form in existence and mirrors the pyramidal shape of the woman’s body as she stands at the table. Read More