Charles Clary

At the Rhymer Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee, you can see paper art by artist Charles Clary. After a long night of a monthly art crawl and seeing the work of many artists in nearby galleries, I was immediately fascinated by Clary’s work. The vibrant colors of the paper caught my eye and I was in awe at how much patience Clary must have had to complete his work. The pieces range from free hanging various sizes of shapes of hand cut paper to small square frames of his designs. From afar, the pieces look like shapes glued on to the wall in all different fading colors; it seems as if they are rising from the wall behind them. When you look closely, you see the thin paper cut so perfectly, intricate designs layered on top of more paper of a slightly different shade. For more information on Charles Clary: http://www.therymergallery.com/artists/?id=49

The Sound of Music

In my AP Art History class, we were asked to write an analysis on this drawing; once we had finished making our blogger accounts, we had about 30 minutes to write. This is what I came up with:

Coyle’s abstract drawing consists of two square shapes in a vertical line in the center. There are no definite lines where the squares start and stop; they blend in with the rest of the piece. The top square has a darker center, shades of blue and black; the bottom square consists of one small, bright red square in the middle. The colors around the boxes are scribbled, wavy lines of every color; pink being the color that stands out the most, and the corners of the drawing tend to move towards a green and blue color. It seems as if the artist went through a box of colored pencils, and one by one, used every single one of them in the drawing. The outside line surrounding the drawing is not straight or perfect in any way, and Coyle has left stray marks of colored pencil there where she colored outside of the line.

The drawing reminds me of two speakers blaring music; the sound waves from the music create a mess of colors all around two black boxes vertically placed in the piece. If music were playing, it would be some type of heavy metal, with clashing notes; chaos. This piece makes me feel stressed because nothing is in its place, it is completely abstract and reminds me of someone pulling at their hair, overwhelmed by the noises of chaotic music.

Clare Coyle Taylor

Colored pencil drawn on bristol board

Girl with a Mandolin

In the painting Girl with a Mandolin, Picasso uses muted colors to depict a nude woman playing a mandolin. Light, creamy shades make up her skin, and smoky gray shadows lurk behind the woman’s silhouette. Picasso darkens the creamy color to paint her hair, eyelid, and the shadows on her face and hands to show dimension. No one color stands out from the others, however, the right side of her face and neck are lighter than the rest of the painting; it shows where the light was being cast as Picasso was painting her. The girl’s face is shown in profile and one eye is visible, yet her torso is faced to the front. She is painted from the thighs up and stands holding a mandolin, her rectangular fingers stretch over the neck and over the sound hole of the instrument as if she is playing. The lines of the painting are much less than fluid, Picasso paints the girl using different shapes: ovals, rectangles, cubes, many three dimensional objects. The shapes are different in size and are not made up of perfectly straight lines. The cubist look that Picasso presents is not realistic, the woman is misshapen. Her right arm connects to a large, boxy shoulder and her right breast seems to hang off of her body. The shape of the girl’s body is defined by the darker colors surrounding her with shadows, but there is not an obvious line where her body is compared to the background of the piece. Behind the girl are rectangular shapes painted in the same dull colors of her body which make her blend in with the background; it seems that Picasso only cared about painting the woman in front of him; he had little interest in what was going on beyond her.

María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga, Francisco de Goya

Maria’s lacy attire and the baby blue color of her bodice immediately strike the viewer’s eye. She wears a long, dark colored skirt and a sheer veil on her head, hiding her blonde curls. At first glance of the young girl’s stance, one foot pointed forward and her hands resting on her hip and waist, she looks like a grown woman. As you look closer, you see the youthful face with the pink cheeks and curious eyes, unsure about her position. The way her hand is curled up on her hip makes it seem like she is posing, and it’s as if she was told how to stand and where to put her hands; that it wasn’t the choice of the little girl. By the look of her wide eyes, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were people behind De Goya telling her what to do. Because Maria is so elegantly dressed and has a small white dog sitting at her feet, it is obvious that she comes from a royal, wealthy family; she is the daughter of a Spanish prince. She stands out from her surroundings of the mountains in Spain and there seems to be a light being put off by the child. Though it does look like she is standing on the terrace of a large palace, her beauty contrasts with the dull green plants and weeds behind her and she and her dog look out of place.