The Importance of Art Appreciation - Assignment Example

Art Appreciation

Lane used various forms of lines in his various paintings. In Boston harbor, the painting depicted use of various lines in order to bring a true reflection of the art. This painting reveals the early morning in the Boston Harbor for a long period of time. There are some bigger boats, middle-size boats as well as smaller boats that are far away in the harbor. In this painting, Lane used horizontal lines to reveal the calmness and the expansive horizon of the harbor. Lane use of the horizontal lines was to give the feeling of both space and peacefulness whereby he systematically used the lines to delineate the sections of the scene to recede gradually into the distance. The horizontal lines used by Lane begin in the foreground and progresses all the way to the farthest distance of the harbor. Vertically lines are also manifest in the painting to emphasize the perpendicularity of the ships plus the buildings to the ground. Lane used vertical lines to depict the sailing movement of the ships and give their direction of flow at the harbor. Additionally, the use of both horizontal and vertical lines in the paintings can show Lane wanted to give the harbor its permanence of the various buildings that it contains and hence give the good-looking quality and softening the effect of the painting. Along with the small ships that flow to the harbor from the distant to the nearby big ships, Lane apparent use of diagonal lines to point toward action and movement becomes clear. Lane use of rectangle shape is also evident in the painting although one line does not dominate. The painting composition is balanced to give the painting its stunning and visually attractiveness. Lane wanted the harbor painting to reveal various themes hence he utilized these various methods to clearly bring out the themes.

Childe Hassam selected the view of the Tremont Street since the scene impressed him with the typical fast-paced life in the city and the contrasted snowy park. He used a perspective scheme whereby the vertical strokes of the fence, lampposts as well as trees retrocede swiftly into the distance, approaching closer and closer together. Hassam then utilized diminishing scale to show the largest trees and buildings closest while the smallest trees are appearing to the farthest distance. Similarly, Hassam differentiated the hurried movement at the left-side with the composed quiet of the snowy park through linear perspective. The snowy park and the left-side building gradually recede into the distance to develop an astonishing illusion of depth. The paint also depicts one-point perspective with the vertical and horizontal lines being parallel with the sides of the painting. Although Hassam rarely utilized overlapping in the paint, however, the utilization of foreshortening was greatly used to develop proximity in the painting. When the objects such as the trees and the buildings in the painting appear larger than the other trees receding gradually, the bigger trees and buildings are perceived to be nearer than the smaller distant trees and buildings. Hassam wanted to show that the bigger trees and buildings were closer compared to the smaller buildings hence clearly developing proximity of the painting. An additional illusion of depth element that was utilized in the paint by Hassam is vertical placement where he placed the buildings and trees lower to depict the closeness in contrast to buildings and trees placed higher in the painting which are perceived to furthest away. The people are placed lowest by Hassam hence perceived to be closest while the other objects are placed higher to mean that they were furthest.

Vincent Van Gogh in his painting, Night Café, used exaggerated perspective to develop disorienting angles and hence filling his painting with an abysmal yellow floor. The walls are blood-reddish while the floor and the lights are yellow with a green ceiling. The artist painting depicted night scenes that he referred to as richly colored compared to the day. The primary colors used by Vincent were red and yellow. Uninviting red was used to paint the three walls while dull yellow was used to paint both the floor and the lights. This depicted unsavoriness atmosphere that the people were staying for their nights and the contrasting human emotion. The dominant secondary color that is used in the painting by the artist is green. The use of clashing pure color by the artist represented the horrible passions of individuals. The artist used green to painting the entire ceiling, table floor with the table to bring out a unified theme. Further, the artist used complimentary colors when we keenly observe the lamps, the billiard table, the stand behind the pool table, and its shadow. He painted these with orderly yellows, greens as well as yellow-greens. This depicted the contrasting use of the painting’s use of color. The artist used minimal open palette as he desired to bring out the effect of contrasting colors hence widely used a restricted palette that is evident in the painting. The use of restricted palette hence depicted jarring nature of the visual effects that were evident in the Night Café and were utilized significantly to develop human emotions such as loneliness and sadness.

Gerrit Dou, Sleeping Dog, used various forms of light to depict the extent through which it can render a painting its attractiveness. Dou use of light in the sleeping dog was required to show the effect of the lighting in a relation of the position of the painting. The use of direct light in the painting is depicted not only through shadows and reflections but also through opening up the horizons of the painting. Shadows consisting of the pile of the kindle wood as well as the pot can be viewed from the background although the use diffused light makes the dog lack a pronounced shadow. Whereas the lack of clear shadows is evident in the foreground of the paint, the dog lacks a shadow as it is directly illuminated by light. The use of diffused light developed the minor shadows of the painting such as the dog’s unclear shadow. The artist hence combined both elements of diffuse and direct light to show the varied effects of the paint. Faint shadows are evident in the painting which portrays that the artist used both elements in the painting. Artistic use of diffused and direct light makes the contents of the painting to be clearly visible hence the painting is easily explained through the viewing of the contents. Dou wanted to bring out the various elements of the paint through lighting thereby he used light to a significant extent. The light that is used in the painting comes from the direction of the dog since that direction lacks a clear and meaningful shadow and reflection.

There are several similarities and differences between Leonardo da Vinci “last supper” and Edvard Munch “the scream” that are evident in the two paintings. The use diagonal lines in the scream to reveal motion and force of the paint is clear while the lack of diagonal lines is evident in the last supper as no motion is involved. The last supper utilized a rectangular shape while the scream utilized a square shape in their portrait. Another difference is that the last supper uses horizontal lines to reveal its calmness while the lack of use of horizontal lines can be attributed to the lack of calmness of the painting. In the last supper, these horizontal lines recede gradually to the background hence depicting the proximity of the building while the scream lacks the utilization of the horizontal lines. While the last supper may be attributed to one line dominance, the scream lacks one-line dominance. In the last supper, it utilizes one-line dominance in order to perceive all the objects in the paintings to be of the equal measure while in the scream, the person wailing dominates the painting. All the individuals as well as the building in the last supper are perceived to be of equal importance compared to the wailing individual in the scream. A similarity between the paintings is that both paintings used balanced composition to bring out their themes. Both paintings have a pleasing visual effect that makes one be mesmerized by the art involved since both artists utilized the crucial forms of painting elements to bring out what they wanted to the painting.