This week’s material on Paintings is more about how we view art. Visual art such as paintings include more of a visual analysis. A visual analysis is being able to understand what you are looking at when you see art. Such as line, color, scale, and texture. This is so we can understand what the artist is exhibiting, but also recognizing the formal elements line, color, scale, and texture the artist put into their painting. 

The key to understanding these things is asking yourself questions while analyzing the painting. To know what kind of color, light, and tone used in a painting is recognizing if the colors are bright or “dim”, that just helps me understand. As well as light, noticing if there is any “light source” used can help you know the tone or mood of the painting. The scale to me is what objects that are prominent in the painting but catch my eye. Especially where they are placed in the painting. Asking yourself how the elements are can help you with the visual analysis when looking at any form art.

This painting is by Jean-Michel Basquiat, called Warrior(1982). I remember seeing this painting at an art gallery on a field trip and was confused. In no offense to the artist, i thought it was a drawing made by a child for an art project. At the time my concept of art or just paintings in general were ones like the Mona Lisa or the creation of Adam. Not knowing art can be in any form and people have different ways of how they display their art. What surprised me the most was the painting being worth 40 million, this intrigued me more than anything. 

First glance at the painting, the “line” is very prominent, the figure in middle uses a lot of this and the way they show up on the painting look as if they were made in a fast motion, just because they aren’t the straightest lines, meaning they didn’t take as much time to make. The color in the painting is bright. The bright colors around the perimeter of the painting make the whole thing look bright despite the black figure being in the center of the painting. The scale of the painting is obviously the black figure in the center of the painting. I think the bright background could be the scale in some cases just because the brightness of the color catches the eye. However for me it was the figure because of the contrast between the background colors and the black. The composition is not really “harmonised” and seems to have widespread arrangement. The technique of his art seems to be with spray paint, looking at the black figure and seeing the paint drops. Also an oil crayon because of how the texture looks in the painting.

Jean-Michel Basquiat sparked an interest in art for me. I began looking at more of his work and noticed that this was his style of art and what i loved was how distinct it was. Not only that but the meaning behind his art. You could see his work in the art gallery and know exactly who made it. I appreciated it more as i got older and loved the originality of his work, No one’s work looks like his