Language, perception, interpretation 3rd assignment
                                                                                                                                          18.05.2012

"Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen."
-Pablo Picasso

Artists paint their visions, how they interpretate a story and what they feel. In return we get our own visions and interpretations of their work when we see it.
The paintings I've chosen for this assignment is of what i find intriguing, by means of tecniques, visual illusions and simply choice of colours.


David with the Head of Goliath
c. 1609-10

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is very well known for his amazingly realistic paintings. This one along with The Entombment of Christ, by the same artist, is two of my all time favourtis. Caravaggios signature is the absolute realism and the dramatic contrasts of dark and light. His deep, magnificent and solid paintings to me is always eye catching as well as breath taking. The first time I saw The Entombent of Christ was in the fifth grade in elementary school. I did not know its name nor the artists' at the time, but it was always on my mind till I discovered Caravaggio last year.

Caravaggio have made three paintings based on  one bibical story. All three paintings are extraordinary, but I will explain later why i chose this one in particular over the two others.

David with the Head of Goliath describes the climax of the clash between David and Goliath the giant. Apearantly David used the giants own sword to cut off his head.
Between the light and the shadow, Davids face reveals a sense of sadness or regret. His sorrow expression combined with the dark choice of colours, creates a heavy mood, that will have you thinking "is this really a matter of defeat and victory?".
While Goliaths head is seperated from its body, he still seems alive, his eyebrows is furrowed and its almost like he is gasping while trying to focus his eyes on someone, or something maybe.
The contrast in this painting is very clear, as the whole background is pitch black. The bright light areas in the painting forms that intense contrast, and the deep shadows contribute to create that realistic, almost three dimensional, effect. It almost feels like David is handing Goliath head over to you.
This piece is magnificant yet simple, there is not much details that your eyes could ignore. Caravaggio had illuminated exactly what you need to see in the painting. You clearly see how Davids body is standing, their facial expressions, how Davids right arm is streching towards you, and last but not least the swords blade that is shining from the bottom left corner, not wanting to be ignored by any means.
One main thing in this painting that has made me speechless, is the weight of Goliaths head. You feel the heaviness of the head, which in my opinion brings the art of realism to a whole new level. Also what i think contributes alot to this paintings magnitude.
I am not sure where the tecnique principally lays, and therefore this masterpiece remains both mystical and intriguing to me.

Metamorphosis of Narcissus

-1937

To understand the work of Salvador Dali, especially the Metamorphosis of Narcissus, it becomes significant to know what The paranoiac critical method is.
The use of the dual image stemmed from the paranoiac critical method, which Dali himself had been developing since the early 1930's. This form represented "irrational knowledge" in his work, through which he wanted to wrap the dividing line between illusion and reality.
The Metamorphosis of Narcissus marks the climax of Salvador Dali's works as a Surrealist, since this was the first painting made according to his paranoiac critical method. Also it is regarded as the best outcome of the paranoiac critical method that he invented.
The subject of the painting was drawn from classical mythology. As narrated by the Roman poet Ovid, in his book Metamorphoses. Narcissus was a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection. He became motionless as a statue, as he was transfixed by the person he saw in the water. Knowing he was unable to attain this kind of love, he allowed himself to die gradually, while still bending over his own image.

I admire the artists very unique style and especially the Paranoiac critical method. The double images he created within his masterpieces, where the same elements can be interpreted in different ways. For instance the landscape in one of his many amazing paintings, Apparition of Face and fruit dish on a Beach could also be viewed as a human face as well as fruits in a wine glass. Or in the case of Metamorphosis of Narcissus the two bodies hold the same form, but looking closer the painting will become clearer and you will see that the body to the left is a human with a ponytail leaning his forehead on his knee, while to the right you have a hand holding an egg. But the shape definitely looks identical on the first sight.
Another thing that I find intriguing in this particular piece of Dali’s, is the interaction between the cold and warm colours. Unlike Rose Meditative that had a combination of the warmest shades of red to a cold background in contrast, this painting of Dali has that mix of warm and cool, but in a less ‘aggressive’ way I would say. The left side of the painting contains the warmer colours, but still there’s a blue spot down to the left, almost like he is trying to balance the painting, or maybe  he is simply playing with the colours?! Either way it complements the upper left side of the painting. The heat and cool within this painting is almost blending together, there’s no harshness yet you can clearly see the fine contrast between the two main bodies in the painting. This leads me to a conclusion that i made before getting to know the whole story behind this piece of art, and that I still find really interesting. Narcissus, the figure to the left was painted in warm, alive colours, whom are in fact the statufied one; he was in that state of ‘disappearing’ or fading away. After all he gives up on life for the impossible love he had gotten himself into. Shouldn’t he be the one painted in ‘cooler’ colours?! Instead the hand that is holding a symbol for generation and immortality , and for most it simply resembles life, looks dead and motionless. Or maybe it is just in the progress of becoming alive?!
I hope I’m not contradicting myself when I say this, but it is perfect the way it is, therefore imagining a switch of colours between the two figures is almost wrong.

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) 
-1950

This timeless abstract piece is one of Jackson Pollocks best known drip paintings, also one of my personal favourits. You can see the emotional battle and physical engagement of the artist with the canvas by looking at this splendid dynamic art.
Pollock used gravity as a main element by spreading the unstreched canvases on the floor, and building up those layers of splashes and swirls. The spontaneous yet greatly controlled manner of using the brushes to splatter, drip, curve and even pour directly from the cans, is a tecnique that Pollock had mastered and displayed in his work, that contributed to redefining the categories of painting and drawing.

The swirling tangle of lines, curves, splashes and dots looks blasting, but in no way chaotic. The viewers eyes cannot rest on one spot, as there is action and movment flicked all over the canvas.
Pollock achieved the perfect mood for the title due to the use of a restricted earthy palette. That i also believe plays a role in the making of that "three dimentional illusion". The order and flow of the layers, the depth of the colours, and the rhythm and balance between the two, i think is the key to this illusion. The white that is popping out, the heavy black that is trying to dominate it, the turquoise that you need to dive into the painting in order to find, and lastly the brown that is impossible to overlook.
What I love the most about Autumn Rhythm is that it draws you into it. There is no form or shape of anything in particular, so you are on your own trying to make sense of it. Your only clue is the colours. It becomes up to the viewer to take part of making up a story for what they see, and feel. To me this painting could resemble something endless, without a center, you see a part of it only and that is what you know of it, but it is much bigger and greater. The canvas size (266.7 x 525.8cm) is huge which i think plays a role in what kind of aura this painting gives out, but i doubt any size reduction would've made it less glorious.


I think all of those three spectacular pieces play in the field of illusion and/or three dimensional art. Whether it being by the use of shadow tecniques from the early 1600,  or by the dual image method that Dali developed, or even splattering and dripping layers of colours on top of each other to make an illusion of depth.
Regardless of the background or history of those paintings, they managed to fascinate me from the first time i layed my eyes on them.