Free Essay

Interpretation of a Painting

In:

Submitted By MilanB
Words 1018
Pages 5
Event Paper #1 – Painting
ARTS 1301.002
Milan Baweja
October 5, 2013

I attended the The Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art on October 3rd 2013. This Exhibition had many different paintings with styles varying from the different eras of European Art. The painting that caught my eye was The Union of Venus and Bacchus (L'Alliance de Bacchus et de Vénus) by Nicolas Chapron. Chapron successfully demonstrates a union being made between these two gods due to his use of color, texture, and his line technique. In the painting The Union of Venus and Bacchus (L'Alliance de Bacchus et de Vénus) by Nicolas Chapron paints the goddess Venus with the god of wine and fertility Bacchus. Directly underneath them there is a satyr holding a fallen goat with two infants at each of the goat’s hind legs. They are in a forest with what appears to be a stone table with a vase on it and cloth surrounding the back of the trees to make a hidden area in the woods. On the right hand side of the table intertwined in the cloth are two more infants. The vase on the table has a face on the front of it and the spout is in the shape of a bird’s beak. Underneath the infants in the bottommost right hand side of the painting, there is some sort of cracked stone and a base of a column. In the background of the painting the sky is in turmoil and there is the rest of the forest and a path that leads to the area of the painting. In the center of the path lies a boulder. At Venus’ feet there is a woman lying down with her head back. Venus is pointing to the woman while facing Bacchus and they seem to be discussing about the woman. The satyr has a distressed face and is looking at the bottom left of the painting where there is a large hole in the ground. The closed line technique used outlines the bodies and faces that allows us to read their expressions and makes the painting more realistic. Chapron uses a lot of neutral earth tones that don’t have a lot of saturation. The brightest color in the painting is the orange cloth but even then, it I still a burnt orange. The texture in this painting is smooth. It contains clean brushstrokes that gives it a clean feeling and doesn’t interfere with the subject matter within the painting itself. The goat in the painting is a sacrifice to the god Bacchus. The satyr is protecting the goat and since no sacrifice is being made Bacchus is taking the sacrifice himself by creating a hole in the ground approaching the goat and satyr. The vase on the table most likely has wine in it due to the fact that Bacchus is the god of wine. The infants are attempting to drag the goat to the hole so that Bacchus will spare them. The woman below Venus has accepted her fate and is lying down awaiting the hole to consume her. The way Venus is standing suggests that she is trying to convince Bacchus to spare the satyr and infants while she proposes another option. The title of the piece is The Union of Venus and Bacchus, which is what Venus is proposing. This is taking place at an altar in the forest where sacrifices are usually made. This hidden location in the forest is damaged. All that remains of the column is the base and directly behind it there lies a cracked stone. This means that this sacrificial ground has been disrespected. The stormy sky in the background is a sign or omen that there is trouble brewing and that Jupiter does not approve of Venus’ alliance with Bacchus. Jupiter is wary because Bacchus is the son that he had with Semele and Venus could be trying to harm him since he is not her son. The color scheme that Chapron uses is not bright at all. He uses somber earth tones to give off a gloomy or morose feeling. To further that feeling the color scheme gives us, the satyr’s facial expression is one of fear and anxiety. The way to woman is reclined with her arm over her face contributes to this ominous mood that Chopran creates. I believe that Chopran was successful is portraying and creating the Union of these two gods in his painting The Union of Venus and Bacchus. When you look at the painting, Chopran immediately directs you line of sight to the satyr holding the goat. Then slowly you see Venus and Bacchus and the other elements of the painting. The satyr’s face however grasps your attention because his line of sight directs you to the hole in the earth and it makes me feel almost sorry for him. Then Venus and Bacchus are uncaring of everything going on and are having a casual conversation. This to me shows the differences between gods and mortal beings. He is extremely effective in his use of color. The different hues and saturation of each hue contributes to the mood and feeling that this work of art gives off. The smooth texture of the painting makes it easy to see the expressions of all the bodies in the painting and doesn’t take your focus away from the important aspects of the work. Chapron successfully demonstrates a union being made between these two gods due to his use of color, texture, and his line technique. His color sets the somber mood for the painting and gives off a feeling of tension and sadness. His texture is smooth and doesn’t take my attention away from the other parts of the work that are more important. Finally his line technique outlines all the bodies in this piece and allows me to see the shape and expressions that are included. Therefore Nicolas Chapron is successful in displaying a union of gods in his painting The Union of Venus and Bacchus (L'Alliance de Bacchus et de Vénus).

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Tv Gallery

...Watching television for two hours straight is not something I partake in on a usual basis, but it was interesting to see the elements and principles of design used in the programs and commercials to attract the viewers. I decided to watch a sitcom program, “Seinfeld”, which is nearly the greatest television show in the history of television. During this television show I noticed a lot of use of mass and form and rhythm on the buildings and other things that were shown during the television show. The show takes place in the heart of New York City so during the show; you can see much of the architecture and art that surrounds the big apple. I also see lots of texture on some of the clothing that is depicted on the actors and actresses in the comedy show. Obviously it wasn’t just the program I was watching, I unfortunately had to sit through some pretty boring and irrelevant commercials, but it was intriguing to see all the use of the elements and principles of design in order to promote the product the company is advertising. During the commercials, I definitely found it to be more colorful and more usage of shape than the television program. In order to be able to successfully market the specific product or business in commercials, one needs to make the advertisement attractive, non-controversial, and informational. I believe that I also saw many commercials involving balance and proportion. In order for a commercial to be not all crazy and well done, it should have some balance...

Words: 1231 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Analysis Of Picasso's Puzzles About Art

...portrait of Françoise Gilot. The portrait depicts Gilot as a flower, rather than a human. Picasso took such an approach to this portrait, because he thought the abstract painting would represent Gilot more accurately. Though the reading gives examples of specific changes to Gilot’s figure and Picasso’s reasoning behind the changes. It seems that Picasso observed features of Gilot that would be difficult to express through a regular portrait. It is possible Picasso determined that Gilot’s personality would easily be unnoticed in a normal portrait. A flower is a small, delicate, and beautiful object. By painting Gilot as a flower, it is possible to assume that, in real life, she was a nice, charming. and pretty lady....

Words: 435 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Marble Statues Research Paper

...Throughout history, events have been taken and interpreted in a multitude of ways. These interpretations vary depending on who documents them and who consumes that information. Societies are able to make interpretations based on information given to them by historians, textbooks, news sources and the Internet to form views that become based on the past and the present. A countless number of these interpretations exist in society today whether they involve art, fashion or racial tension. These interpretations influence how society views both the present time and the historical past whether they be good or bad. One topic of interpretation that had been studied during class was the Chauvet cave paintings in southeastern France. These paintings...

Words: 1005 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Primavera

...Renaissance, it has many scholars still arguing about what the painter was thinking when he painted this, in order to give some meaning to the figures and objects of the painting. The excerpts that were given to us helped to explain the painting from the perspective of two different scholars, who used various sources to help decipher the painting. Both were very interesting interpretations, however I found Zollner’s argument, as opposed to Zirpolo’s, to be more convincing based on his attention to every character in the painting. In the first excerpt, taken from Frank Zollner’s Botticelli: Images of Love and Spring, he takes each character from the Primavera and gives them a background and a story, based on sources from different text fragments. According to Zollner, the figure on the very left is Mercury, the messenger of the gods who divides clouds and drives away wind with his wand, which is discussed in Virgi’s Aenid He characterizes the little flying boy as Amor (Eros in Greek mythology), the son of Mars and Venus. Venus, the goddess of love and beauty is the woman at the very center of the painting. She is accompanied by the Three Graces. He explains how these characters are often found together in other literary works, like in one of Horace’s popular verses. Moving to the right side of the painting, the woman decorated with flowers is characterized as Flora, with her pre-transformation form of Chloris clinging to her side. He assumes this, from the work of Ovid’s Fasti...

Words: 864 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Song Of Hiawatha Analysis

...history of the painting. In the painting, J.M.W. Turner...

Words: 1178 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Art History Comparison Paper

...Gloria Wu Gretchen Halverson ART-HIST 110 Formal Analysis of Two Landscapes         Landscape painting has been around for many centuries depicting the surroundings from trees and mountains to towns and cities. Landscapes show many naturalistic aspects of the world around us from nature itself to the various architecture and cities, and what we see and interpret can be expressed differently on a canvas. Both Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, New Hampshire and Field of Poppies are landscape paintings depicting different subject matter within 30 years of each other. Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, New Hampshire was created in 1861, during the transition between Romanticism and Realism, by Albert Bierstadt. This landscape is made with oil on canvas when Bierstadt went to visit New Hampshire, United States of America. Field of Poppies was created in 1890, during the French Impressionism, by Claude Monet. This landscape is made with oil on canvas during the summer in the poppy field near his house in Giverny. These two paintings shows what the artists saw in their surroundings from the lake to the mountain, and from the field to the trees. Both paintings depict how the artists demonstrate their own interpretation of the landscape in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bierstadt’s Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, New Hampshire retains the idealized, realistic view of the landscape by depicting every detail he sees compared to Monet’s Field of Poppies where the landscape strongly incorporates...

Words: 1890 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Giuliano Bugiardini’s, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, Northern vs. Southern

...Paper Assignment I Throughout Europe, the Renaissance period had various effects on art which can be broken down and seen from Southern (Italian) and Northern paintings. With the renaissance, came disinterest in dogma, and more of a focus on naturalism and humanism. However, the strong influence of religion never left either the Northern or Southern art works, due to the commission by the church. Giuliano Bugiardini’s, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, 1510, is a pristine depiction of what Southern European art during the renaissance contained, element by element. Northern artists kept most their roots, focusing heavily on religion while enhancing on the details and adding few aspects of naturalism; while Southern artists took more of a maniera greca and humanistic type approach, where religion and abstraction was in a conflicting battle with what was reality. The color, light, and shadow of Bugiardini’s, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, emits a naturalistic feel that is seen throughout the whole painting. The painting’s main colors of brown and green are abundantly found in nature, usually representing trees, grass, dirt, etc. Mary’s red and blue gown contrasts with the rest of the scenery, making her stand out while emitting a calm (blue) but emotional (red) tone. The colors in the painting also seem to tell a story with a dull, dark brown in most of the foreground, and more vivid greens in the background. This could represent current dark times, followed...

Words: 1362 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper

...the “renaissance man” because he was skilled at many things such as sculpting, anatomy, engineering and painting. One of the paintings that he was most know for was Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (1495- 1498) which should be a in a time capsule for future humanities students because of its unique style which would be fresco/ tempera on plaster, interpretation of the painting tells a story and because of how good the art piece was made and should be preserved Leonardo da Vinci was one of the biggest renaissance artist during his time. When Leonardo moved to Milan he worked for a man named Ludovico Sforza who was a son of a ruler of Milan. Leonardo da...

Words: 806 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Art Analysys

...phenomenal artists, two totally different styles, and two magnificent paintings. In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting the great Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh as well as their beautiful and famous paintings, "Guernica" and "Starry Night". Guernica, was painted by the famous and well-known Spanish Artist, Pablo Picasso. During the Spanish Civil War, the nationalist general Francisco Franco, who would later become the country's ruler, allowed German and Italian planes to test their bombing tactics on Guernica and learn about the psychological effects of air warfare. More than 1,000 civilians were killed in three hours of the bombing. News of the attack quickly spread to Paris, where Picasso read stories and saw photographs of the devastation" (Dewitte, Larmann, and Shields, 545)3. So the back story and reason to why this piece of art was painted was a reaction to the aerial bombing in Guernica, Spain by Italian and German troops during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Picasso was asked to paint a recreation about the bombing on a greatly sized mural to show off at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, France. This painting shows the hardships that come along with war as well as the devastating destruction that it causes a lot of innocent people. Guernica is a large oil painting (25.6 feet wide) that is white, black, and grey...giving it a dark vibe of destruction. A brief interpretation of this painting is easy to understand if you pay attention to the details. For example...

Words: 1105 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Henry Fiseli The Nightmare Analysis

...The Nightmare is an oil on canvas painting by Henry Fuseli made in 1781. This was made during the Enlightenment movement in the 17th century or the “Age of Reason” in England. This oil painting depicts a sleeping woman with an incubus sitting on her chest, with a mare in the background, looking upon the scene. Different interpretations of this art piece relate to different beliefs, which most relate to some form of a Christian religion. One interpretation states that this is what occurs if someone were to sleep alone, especially a woman. An incubus, demons who rape women and impregnates them, sits upon the woman. When men slept alone, they were visited by a horse and women who slept alone were raped by the devil. Another interpretation would...

Words: 446 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Art History

...Consciousness of Early Man The paintings carried out on rock surfaces, which constitute parietal art, caused the curiosity of lots of scientists. These paintings are present in many places of the world; the oldest can have more than 40,000 years. The dating of the prehistoric traces was difficult, as well the interpretation and reasons of the paintings, from anthropomorphic figures to abstract forms of signs. These paintings on the caves represent a universal artistic expression because it was found at various periods on our five continents. They used many techniques to express art, but one of them was painting with the brush. The brush could be manufactured with the hair of animals and even of vegetable materials. Paintings were monochromatic or polychromatic (Cave of Lascaux). Another technique was painting with the finger, which were made with the finger coated painting (Cave of Covalanas). At that time, when the first arts were created, they already made use of some technique to trace contours (punctuated horses of the Cave of Pech Merle), to fill a surface (Cave of Lascaux), or to make prints of negative hands (Caves of Gargas) by puffing up on paintings. Beyond the techniques of analysis and study, parietal art poses to the researcher the insoluble enigma of understanding. Prints of hands with mutilated fingers (or deformed by the disease?) found in” Cueva de Las Manos” in Argentina, is an example of problematic interpretation. In Europe, the scarcity of the...

Words: 368 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Chicana Liberation

...the radical interpretations of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Intersectionality was also important in their paintings since they both received discrimination for their race and their gender both in the movement and outside the movement. The...

Words: 1716 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Evaulating Art

...29, 2012 Abstract Defining art is up to the interpretation of the writer and of the reader. Art in itself is also left up to interpretation, of the artist and of those viewing the work of art. There are many varieties of art, and all still have their own abilities to be changed and redesigned based on the artist. Viewing examples of art definitions along with review of several art varieties show the versatility that is the world of art. Evaluating Art In order to properly evaluate and understand art, one must start by understanding the definition of art. As different people see all works of art differently, so is the definition. That said, finding two definitions of art that makes sense to the writer would then allow further exploration of the eight types of art: painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, printmaking, conceptual art, installation art, and performance art. Appling the definitions to these eight types of art will allow for an evaluation of art in its many forms. Art Defined According to Adajian, Plato defined art as “representational, or mimetic (sometimes translated as “imitative” (Traditional Definitions, para. 2). This implies that Plato believed all art was a representation of reality. This leads one to believe, that any work of art they are seeing was based on an object that once existed. This definition is considered a traditional definition of art and shows a limited interpretation of art and where artists manifest their artwork,...

Words: 1448 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Picasso (Guernica)

...Art has many different types, including, sculpture, painting, architecture, electronic media like photography and other electronic types. Actually, it is hard to determine the meaning of any piece of art because art are subjective and in a constant state of change (Shelley). The most common form of art is Painting, and one of the greatest paintings in the world is Guernica, which was painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937. It is his portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Inside this painting, there are many meanings, some of which have not been discovered yet. Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga. He had four children from three different wives (Biography Vid). He was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor (Pablo Picasso). Picasso started painting when he was 8 years old by painting a bullfight. He spent most of his life in France (Biography Vid). He was also one of the most prominent figures in 20th-contury art. “To say that Pablo Picasso dominated Western art in the 20th century is, by now, the merest commonplace. Before his 50th birthday, the little Spaniard from Malaga had become the very prototype of the modern artist as public figure. No painter before him had had a Abdullah 2 mass audience in his own lifetime” (Pablo Picasso). He painted any event, which came into his life like having new child, getting married, suffering and crisis. One of the most famous Picasso’s paintings is Guernica (Fig.1). This piece of art made Picasso...

Words: 1051 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Virgin Of Guadalupe Analysis

...Even in the introduction, Article #2 says that its main focus will be on the political myths associated with the painting. The article presents the Virgin of Guadalupe as a tool for the political advancement of the Spanish. In their conquest for the land of present day Mexico, the native people were almost forced into a conversion to the Christian lifestyle. However, the painting helped to unite the people in Mexico and later, in the world. The interpretation in each article was based off the initial background information or historical information on the Virgin of Guadalupe. The historical information in both the articles has identical information. The both explain how Juan Diego was the original visionary of the Virgin of Guadalupe. They both characterize the painting as a miracle, where in Article #2, it describes how he unrolled his cloak to reveal the painting on his tilma. However, the interpretation in these articles is of the replicated version of that miraculous event. In addition, they both talk about the historical significance of Tepeyac, where the miracle took place and a shrine as been built with a Spanish replication of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In conclusion, the articles both characterize the Virgin of Guadalupe as a significant character within the Mexican community, whether it...

Words: 625 - Pages: 3