Essay #1

These two works of art I have chosen caught my attention immediately, they both have at least 400 years separately but the artists depicted a nude woman and the medium of both paintings was oil on canvas.

The first artwork was done by Titian(Italian Pieve di Cadore ca. 1485/90?-1576 Venice) and workshop, titled "venus and the Lute Player. The second artwork was done by Gustave Courbet (French, Ornans 1819-1877 La Tour-de-Peilz), titled "Woman with a parrot." The years between these paintings are relatively significant, but somehow both artist had a similar vision. They depicted in the foreground of the painting the idealized women in the realistic world.

The medium of the paintings are oil on canvas, these 2D works of art and their visual elements are divided in the positive and negative space and the texture and shapes brings reality to the viewer. In addition, both artists depicted the nude woman in a similar way but with a different representation. The Italian artist put his characteristic work by adding a landscape which gave me the illusion of depth. "Following his death, certain parts such as Venus's face and hands were brought to a much higher degree of finish" (MET museum) In other words some of the work was complete after his death. In contrast the French artist depicted more empty spaces, something more abstract but if you look closer there is also a small landscape. Some people called Courbet's artwork a "lack of taste" when this painting was shown, but a few years later the young generation considered completely different.

Even though the years of difference between these work of art are considerable different, we cannot avoid the similarity between them, both artists represent the idealized female figure but with their own personality while they depicted a nude female and each figure is a stylized form to fits in the natural world.

Single vanishing point perspective is a form to described these work of arts where the abstract illustrations plays with some colors altering the real world, for example in the first painting there is not angel that we have seen or a child with wings, are they any? Maybe in the realistic world there is not such a thing while they only represent the real world and form as we see it, with the good and bad. In Courbet work of art he portrayed something that makes reference to a child with wings; in this case he depicted a bird lying into a woman's hand. Certainly his work falls more into the society now and days, we have females and birds maybe there is an abstract work with organic objects lining towards the representational style of figures.

P.S. looking forward for another experience like this, were I had the opportunity to delight myself with these masterpieces. These two work of art are just some of the amazing donations that belong to the Metropolitan Museum.

Sources

Visit to the Metropolitan Museum and online descriptions at http://www.metmuseum.org/