Meredith Liu
Professor Ila Sheren
TA: Heather Read (Section K)
28 April 2017
Paper #3
The Transformed Dream: Elusive Realities
The most fascinating art is often the most perplexing. In the case of Giorgio de Chirico, his repressed consciousness manifests itself in the surreal concoction of oil paint on canvas known as The Transformed Dream. At first glance, the viewer might simply see an odd collection of objects composed into an oblong still life. The subject matter in their particular setting are, in this case, bewildering and unsettling. Read from left to right in the western tradition, de Chirico paints a marble sculpture of a man’s face, two pineapples, and two piles of bananas. These objects are placed on a platform in a shadowy plaza,
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He was always torn between his mixed heritage, combining both the Italian and Greek influences from his parents (Stern). The Transformed Dream is set in an Italianate plaza surrounded by rectangular piers receding into the background. The lines of these architectural piers lead the viewer’s eyes to the train on the horizon. Without context, the inclusion of the locomotive seems to be more of a commentary on industry than anything else. However, it is quite representative of de Chirico’s longing for remnants of home, as his father was a railroad engineer who planned railroad lines throughout the Greek province of Thessaly (Stern). This longing for home is similarly manifested in the “calm and meditativeness of Italian architecture” (Loreto, 88) that de Chirico painted. De Chirico’s shadowy interpretation of his Italian heritage mimics the melancholy of a wandering soul whose national identity has no …show more content…
In The Transformed Dream, as the viewer’s eye moves along the scene, he or she will next see two pineapples, one standing vertically and the other leaning on its mate for support. Again, their unusually warm orange color distinguishes them from the rest of the objects in the still life. However, de Chirico again weaves hints of green throughout the orange spines on the pineapples to unite the disparate tones. This subtle use of contrast enhances both the depth and the cohesion of the piece as a whole. In addition, de Chirico amps up the contrast by creating the gradient in the sky from dark green to light green in order to differentiate it from the dark green pineapple leaves. The most stark contrast, however, is found in the surroundings of the marble head. Along the profile, de Chirico uses a dark outline so that the edge of the god’s face is not lost in the large area of mustard yellow just behind it. The perspective would be unclear and the viewer’s perception of depth would be skewed if de Chirico had omitted this outline. With already surreal subject matter, clarity in form is important in maximizing the audience’s viewing
Diego Rivera’s small image of fruits and vegetables displays a connection to all the other images on the wall. The fruits and vegetables are considered to be a “minor image” shown next to the main image of the baby curled up in the center of the plant. All the minor images on the wall are placed under the major images, and have some sort of relatedness between them. For example, the major image above the fruits and vegetables is a fertility figure that is holding apples, the connection between these two images, is that these fruits and vegetables are naturally grown from the ground to help keep our bodies nourished. In addition, the baby and the fruits and vegetables both symbolize growth and nourishment.
The vivid descriptions of the setting, particularly of Saint-Malo and its streets, beaches, and buildings, create a powerful sense of place and atmosphere. The imagery used to describe Saint-Malo is particularly evocative, as the author writes," the walled city on its granite headland, drawing ever closer, looks like an unholy tooth, something black and dangerous, a final abscess to be lanced away." (Doerr, 4). The use of imagery helps to convey the danger and uncertainty of the characters' lives. It also builds tension and suspense in the story.
Portraits drawn by Raphael are a vital source for the analysis of his artistic motives. “Lady of the Unicorn” (fig. 3), one of Raphael’s earliest Florentine portraits, owes much to Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” in its design. However, the clarity of light which infuses even the shadows with colour not only recalls Raphael’s early exposure to the paintings of Piero della Francesca, but also in itself a statement he wanted to make through his art. Raphael’s obsessive experiments with clarity of features cannot be construed as a mere influence of his teachers or contemporaries. Somewhere deep down, deliberation to do away with the mysterious haziness associable with divine or religious mystification must have inspired the Italian great to incorporate
In this essay, I’m going to discuss the gender roles in the paintings of Dalí, in the film “Un Chien Andalou” by Buñuel and the poems of Federico García Lorca. Gender roles play a huge part within these works. All three of these artists had the ability to showcase something beautiful or majestic through disturbing and off putting imagery. This is what made their work so distinctive compared to many other artists during the surrealist period. The main things all of these artists have in common are their feelings and expressions of gender roles.
as ‘mystery containers”… Interesting idea: these are beings of another world transmitting themselves here through me. Don’t ask me why they are here.” De la Cruz has also described her works as ‘person-objects’. “They are “ashamed, angry, survive car crashes and hurricanes, sometimes suffer amputations, or even apologise for the simple fact that they are only paintings.”
The portrait was painted on wood panel and in gothic like form. Nonetheless, this masterpiece is representation of time, the complexity of the painting and the
The story takes place on a warm summer day, at the beginning the setting takes place on railroad tracks (3.Calvino Italo).Two children are playing, when all of a sudden they hear a train. Both children run and one finds an opening in the hedge (3.Calvino Italo), they found themselves in a garden by chance (3.Calvino Italo). The mood that Calvino was going for was “beauty and enchantment” (3.Calvino Italo). A warm feeling as the people read the story, we know this by the way he described the pleasant setting. The mood of the story is based off of reality and illusion as Calvino was growing up his life wasn 't very consistent.
Known for his defining role in the Mexican Mural Movement, Diego Rivera sought to create paintings that depicted the Mexican renaissance and socialist ideas of Mexican politics. After some time studying in Europe, Rivera was influenced by Italian renaissance artist Giotto to paint using fresco techniques (famsf.org). “Two Women and a Child” serves as an example of the theme he portrays in many of his paintings. While the fresco technique was predominantly used during the Italian renaissance, Rivera revitalized this ideal by including it in his painting of “Two Women and a Child”. Rivera’s use of techniques in Two Woman and a Child provide viewers with an understanding of the strength, pride, and perseverance Mexico had during the Mexican Renaissance.
The immense transformation from the passionate man proclaiming to the mountains, to the gloomy flower which is being held up by the decaying stone hand outlines for the viewers the many emotions and transformations from life to death, self-love to sorrow, and joy to
Instead, we get to see them in groups of three with expressive gestures and body movements. The author’s primary thesis is that Leonardo purposefully contradicted nature’s laws and painting conventions to intensify the mural’s spiritual and dramatic impact. The scene of betrayal shown in the painting offered him the best opportunity
A varied balance between the symbolic and realism has been struck world over by the painting. In the fifteenth century Western painting began to turn from its age- old concern with spiritual realities towards an effort to combine this spiritual expression with as complete an imitation as possible of the outside
This exploration of the unconscious on the canvas is what he called his “ paranoiac-critical method”; where he takes some elements experienced in his state of unconsciousness and represent them in his paintings as realistically as possible so that the viewer can interpret it in his own way, using his own experience of the unconscious. He also states that his method is simply the organization of his inner thoughts represented through the balance between subjectivity and objectivity, by relating unusual objects together and using optical illusions . Dali wanted to explore this hidden realm, to discover any personal fears or traumas, that will further help him understand this part of our mind and furthermore represent it in his paintings. He strove to relate dreams to reality to reach the state of ‘ sur-reality’. Just like Freud, Dali explained that dreams come from the subconscious part of the mind, representing suppressed ideas that are usually considered taboo in the real word we live in.
The use of such unnatural colors and the presence of revolutionary minimalist strokes represent the key features of the “art of the beasts” and provoked agitation within the critics. The colours of the painting are the main characters
In this painting, there is a clear division between the two men with the keys that separates the painting into a symmetrical left and right. The peaceful painting of Perugino reflects onto Wölfflin’s principle of closed form, where everything is contained within the
With the use of black and white, the artist successfully emancipated a dark and gloomy atmosphere conveying the message that color was drained out of people’s lives. Furthermore, color is known to represent happiness and joy of life whereas in the other hand, Dore wants to emphasize that this color was not present anymore as if people didn’t have time to enjoy themselves anymore. Additionally, Over London by Rail seems to have been all painted with a brick texture. These innumerable small bricks drawn throughout the canvas symbolize the monotonous life of the people under their tedious lifestyles loaded with work. Moreover,