Paintings and their historical significance

Art

Variety and harmony are inherent in both Louise Nevelson's 1960 wood sculpture Royal Tide I and in Jan de Heem's 1650 oil painting Still Life with Lobster. Nevelson's composition consists of eighteen distinct units stacked together as a whole: a rectangle divided into eighteen cells. In spite of their individuality, the boxes relate to each other as a harmonious whole. Similarly, de Heem's still life portrays a plethora of disparate items that are unified through color, shape, and theme. Nevelson achieves visual harmony amid diversity via the uniform gold paint that covers the entire composition, uniting disparate elements of the composition. The cells are also neatly stacked and although they suggest hierarchy the units at the bottom are no different with regard to shape, form, color, and theme than those at the top. Moreover, Nevelson imbues the piece with visual harmony by repeating the circle throughout. Circles appear and reappear strategically, drawing the eye toward different points of the piece and creating dynamism and movement. Most notably, the eye is drawn to the third row from the top, the center cell in which a circular object contains within it seven smaller cylindrical items. The harmony Nevelson reates is therefore both visual and conceptual: the artist uses uniform color and repetitive forms to create harmony amid diversity.

Jan de Heem attains a similar visual and conceptual harmony. The elements of the still life are related thematically as emblems of opulence: interestingly similar to the connotation of gold in Nevelson's work. In Still Life with Lobster, an overabundance of fruit spills over a tray on the table while a lobster sits conspicuously in the foreground. de Heem's composition consists of edible items too, imparting a thematic unity. The spherical form is repeated throughout the composition to enhance the piece's overall harmony. Likewise, the lobster's orange color echoes the skin of the peaches and apricots, offering harmony of color as well as form. A string of vine leaves also serves to unite the composition on a horizontal plane. The leaves, distinctly different in terms of shape and color from the central elements of the composition, creates harmony amid variety through the use of line. Thus, the variety inherent in de Heem's still life and in Nevelson's sculpture manifests as a harmonious whole in both.

2. A serpent undulates gracefully, weaving itself between the feet of the enthusiastic dancers. The serpentine form resonates with the curvatures of the dancers' figures, and no straight lines are present in the entire composition. Andre Derain's the Dance is full of motion from the very fact of its theme. Dancing is potentially perpetual, constant motion. The serpent's form is also reminiscent of the swirling shapes that adorn the left-most dancer, whose colors also echo those of the bird's bright plumage. Captured mid-air, in flight, the bird's outstretched wings suggest movement just as the dancers' feet do. The all-red figure in the center of the composition is the anchor for the viewer's eye. She receives the bulk of the viewer's attention because her form seems heavy, earthy, and solid compared with the others and yet she too is in constant motion, savoring every second of the dance. Grabbing onto the hand of her partner, she make a sweeping gesture denoting dance and movement. The lines created by her arms allow the eye to move freely across the canvas. The right-hand dancer turns her torso around fully, and doing so she encourages us to gaze where she is, back at the center of the composition. Rhythm pervades Derain's piece because of his selection of dance as a subject, but also because of the use of curvilinear forms that keep the eye flowing. Moreover, colors repeat themselves enthusiastically, spread out across the canvas and avoiding stagnation.

At first glance, Edward Hooper's Early Sunday Morning exudes stillness and with its straight lines is nothing like Derain's Dance. The town is asleep, businesses closed for the day and not a person is in sight. Yet it is precisely the lack of people that makes Hooper's composition so compelling and full of suggested motion. The viewer's imagination fills the shops with life. Similarly, the long shadows created by the sun are bound to move. A traditional barber pole is strategically placed in the painting. Its swirls counteract the excessive linearity of the rest of the composition, a similar function served by the fire hydrant. The pole's swirls also suggest movement in the same way that the swirling lines do in Derain's painting. Just as the all-red dancer in Derain's composition does, the barber pole offers an anchor for the eye after it wanders around the painting searching for signs of life.