Metropolitan Museum Essay

 

    Painting one artist named Pierre Bonnard, French (1867-1947). Artwork title "Seated Nude", 1919, The medium is oil on canvas."The viewer encounters the Seated Nude form a level perspective, or perhaps slightly below. By resting her weight behind her right hand, she gently thrusts her shoulder upward, while her faintly arching back pushes her breasts forward. Her downward face shifts her hair to shield her eyes." Quoted from the wall text in the museum.The artist uses a lot of warm colors to create a loving feel for this painting. He painted her body color two different shades of orange and gave it value to show what needed to have light(to show how important it is) and what needed to have a shadow. The background colors are a little warm(orange) and cool color (blue) to symbolize that this painting has two different emotion to is which are tension and somewhat relaxation. The bed this woman is seated on has a pattern of orange, blue, and green, then there this bright white bed spread to try and give his painting a happy feeling, but notice that the painting itself has a pattern because it repeats in colors. Lines are a big part of this painting. There are vertical lines which is her arm that is behind her, this symbols strength she has, and horizontal lines which are her arm that is placed in front of her and her legs that shows how calm her body is. It also give a feel that she is struggling with something in her life and as she sit their nude thinking about it, she tries to relax. The style of this painting is abstract because the woman's face is blurry, so it's hard to see her face. A woman does sit on her bed nude to think about issues they are going through.This painting is how a male view a woman when she is is going through issue and how he think she should look sitting on her bed. In a very sexual way.

    Painting two artist named Gustave Moreau French, Paris (1826-1898). Artwork title "Oedipus and the Sphinx,1864. The medium is Oil on canvas."It represents the Greek hero Oedipus confronting the Sphinx outside Thebes: Remains of victims who failed the text appear at the bottom right. Moreau's mythological theme and archaizing style reflect his admiration for Ingres's 1808 version of the same subject and for the work of early Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna". Quoted from the wall text in the museum. The painter Moreau uses a lot of beautiful colors that describe what's going on in his painting. These colors are primary red,blue and yellow, also secondary colors green, purple and brown. There are two human being and a woman who represented as a Sphinx. The man who is Oedipus in a green cloth and in his hand he holds a red spare and in front of him Sphinx with her blue and white tall wings. Below them a man that is not much in the viewer's sight, but you can see his strong foot and his hand gripping a huge brown rock. The scenery is a natural scene with huge rocks in the background. The lines in this painting are vertical/strength, and horizontal/calm. The style is representational because the man looks real and the natural scenery is a very real look it gives, but it's also abstract because the woman is represented as a Sphinx and the viewer can't see the face of the other man.

    These two painting are similar because of the mediums oil on canvas and they are both done by a French artist. Also the styles of the painting are somewhat similar because they both have abstract style, but the other has both abstract and representational. The visual elements are similar because they both uses lines and space  (foreground, and background). These oil painting uses different color forms. The first painting uses a lot of patterns and warm and cool colors and the second painting uses primary and secondary colors no pattern.  The differences between these two are the content and the meaning of the painting. The meaning of the first painting shows a woman nude seated on her bed, but it's almost as if she is struggling with her life, but in a male's point of view because to a woman she would of had night clothes on seated on her bed thinking about what she's thinking about. To a man he uses her as sexual and vulnerable, in the second painting the woman is represented as a Sphinx and this shows the strength of the woman and how royal she is to a man. I choose these painting because they got my full attention and I looked at them both differently from each other. Viewing these painting from different eras showed that at the time of these painting, there was something happening in history either it was historical or just person. For example the first painting was in the year 1919 and in that year women voting act was happening so this gave me the idea of the woman struggling with something in her life because all women were having a hard time dealing with their life. I'm not really sure why these painting were in the museum, but I'm guessing it's because it meant something very valuable and they wanted to share it with different viewers.