Museum Essay # 1

The first piece that I found is "Water Lilies" by Claude Monet.  It is oil on canvas and was painted in 1919. The work is slightly abstract but I think that it still does a good job of representing what it is supposed to represent.  The brush strokes are kind of chunky in places and the colors aren't blended in a lot of places but you still see water lilies.  Some of the colors are enhanced or altered a little bit, but if you stand back a little bit it all looks perfectly natural.  Green and violet aren't quite complimentary but the color scheme isn't analogous either.  The pink that is in the clumps of lilies helps to soften the contrast of the green and the violet and also helps to balance the composition.  The work has an approximate symmetry with the green on either side of the violet and the patches of darkness near the left and right edges of the painting.  It also shows the rule of odds because there are seven clumps of water lilies in the painting.

The second piece that I found is "A Contest between the Shepherds Alcesto and Acaton" and it is tempera on wood.  It is part of a birth tray and is dated from around 1410.  This work looks like it is more representational but it seems a little cartoony.  Everything seems to be in correct proportion but there is a lack of detail.  The color scheme seems to be mainly variations of brown or tan although there is some variation like the man's red tunic and the woman's pink dress.  The boarder is also red and helps to tie the man's red tunic into the work.  The composition has approximate symmetry.  You can almost split it down the middle and you would have half of the woman in pink on one side with two other whole people, one and a half little trees, and half of the little hill in the foreground.  And you would have pretty much the same things on the other side too.  The rule of odds is also present in that there are five people and there are three little trees. 

These two painting are similar in a few of the basic principals of design and formal elements but I think they are much more different.  They both show the rule of odds and have a basic symmetry to the composition and neither one is close to being a photo realistic representation of the content.  "Water Lilies" is, in my opinion, much more detailed even though up close it looks more like random blotches of paint than water lilies floating on a pond.  If you stand back your eyes naturally blend the colors and the blotches of paint become a beautiful picture of lilies drifting on water with reflections of trees on it.  "A Contest..." shows a greater level of surface detail but there are major things that are left out that make it seem cartoonish.  The shading is very detailed in some parts of the piece, like in the woman's dress sitting in the foreground, but there are other places that look almost flat, like the man's tunic which has very little detail.  Also there are no cast shadows which makes it seem like everyone is kind of floating above the ground.  Overall I enjoy "Water Lilies" the most out of the two by far.