I have a paper and I need to paraphrase

6/22/16

National Gallery of Art in Washington District of Columbia, contains a lot of exhibitions and the two art pieces that this paper will discuss comes from “The Woodner Collections: Master Drawings from 7 Centuries” exhibition. This exhibition contained a lot of art pieces which ranged from using art medias such as chalk, pastel, ink, ink brush, etc. My two favorite art pieces from the entire exhibition are entirely different subjects from each other. The first art piece that I admired and favored most was the “Left Wing of a Blue Roller” by Hans Hoffmann and the second art pieces that I also favored was the “Male Nude Kneeling and Bound to a Tree” which came from a French School.

In regards to the first art piece from what I previously stated in the introduction, “Left Wing of a Blue Roller” by Hans Hoffman comes from Germany and was created in the year 1580. This art piece was created from the use of watercolor and gouache on parchment. Hans Hoffmann, according to the National Gallery of Art, lived from the years of either 1545 until 1591 or from the year 1550 until 1592. The National Gallery of Art stated near the art piece that even though the piece contains the monogram of “AD” it can be perceived as one of Albert Durer’s art pieces and led to a misuse of authorship when it comes to identifying the artist for this art piece. Albert Durer is “an artist identified as Hans Hoffman” and is one of the most prominent and talented artists from the Durer Renaissance which took place in the second half of the sixteenth century. What attracted me towards this art piece was that the exhibition did not contain many art works which involve the use of color and this piece specifically contains many different hues and tones which makes the subject very captivating. The subject of this art piece is the form of a wing, and even though this wing contains dark hues, it is still very smooth and soft towards the eye. This art piece appears bright in value despite the dark hues that take over most of the art piece. Because of this bright value, the color blue in the wing looks somewhat royal. That one red feather brings mystery to the piece since it is only one feather while the other colors of the feathers on the wing are scattered throughout multiple feathers. There is wonderful smooth transitions in hues and tones change between the colors. Because of these smooth transitions, the subtle tone changes make the different hues fit with each other and all the different hues appear in harmony even though some of the hues are bright and some are dark. The red feather and the royal blue feathers are the hues that I look at first when viewing this art piece. Also another quality which i admired about this art piece is that the wings perspective appears as though it was in motion through the use of the solid and curvilinear lines which the artist used.

The second art piece what what I also previously mentioned in the introduction, “Male Nude Kneeling and Bound to a Tree”, is an anonymous art piece which the National Gallery of Art did not have a description about besides that it came from a french school, therefor the art piece is french and that it was created in the year 1690. The National Gallery of art however did provide what art medias were used to create the artwork and the medias are that it was created through the use of chalk that is heightened with white. What made me admire this art piece was that the first thing i observed about this piece was the emotion that it provoked within me and that is that it makes me sympathize with what appears as a man in a state of punishment and torture. The type of perspective that is most prominent in this art piece is the foreshortening perspective which is caused by the bending of the nude males knee as well as the slight curve at his waist and that even though his arms are in an upward position, they're not upwards in a straight position but in a curved position. In order to use the foreshortening perspective, this anonymous artist used solid and curvilinear lines to draw out these details on the subjects form. Both external and internal contours are also used to further decorate the form of the subject. What attracts me to this art piece is that because the environment of the art piece is almost empty, the viewer can focus on the subject and the torture that he is experiencing because he is attached to the tree. By focusing only on the subject, we also experience a sense of mystery which I mentioned earlier with the previous art piece, since now the observer wants to know how this nude model ended up in this situation of torture and who exactly chose this form of punishment and why. What I admire about this art piece is the dark shadings directly below the knee bent leg as well as that minor spot of highlight on the knew since even though we do not see a visible light source, we can imagine where that light source of smoking from because of the shadings with are evident on the legs, arms and face of the nude male. Even though this art piece has no hue in it, the subject of the art piece creates a mysterious narrative which makes the observer want to discover the story behind this setting.

To sum up, the art pieces which i chose are not similar to each other other than they both are made from solid and curvilinear lines as well as evoke mystery. One drawing was colored and appeared peaceful and royal, while the other can be considered monochrome but a scene of distress, fear, and evokes sympathy within the viewer.