Alec Goes to The National Gallery A Children’s Book by Alec Black
Outside the West Wing I arrived the day after Thanksgiving to an overcrowded, overheated National Gallery of Art. Upon entering the West Wing I was faced with thousands of waddling overweight tourists scrambling to find which overpriced souvenir pleased them the most.
Classical Paintings The first section I came upon was the Renaissance and Classical art section. This section was full of work by many talented artists that had no appeal to me. They didn’t show any of their own perspective, which tends to be boring.
Mr. Jefferson I would love to be able to create paintings this lifelike, but it doesn’t have any artistic flare. Without perspective it is just like any bland photograph and cannot keep my attention.
Winslow Homer (My favorite name in the gallery)
Winslow Homer had a classical style but painted shots of action with perspective which I liked better than the other Classical pieces. Here we can see people sailing on rough seas, and he also had a painting of a boy pulling a deer out of the water. They were more interesting than daily life.
Classical Art All of the artists that created these paintings are incredibly talented. They have years of training and have committed their lives to their art.
Impressionists
The Impressionists, mainly Monet and Cezanne, really began to pique my interest.
Van Gogh and others I found these artists to be fascinating. I loved the way that they could use seemingly meaningless shapes and colors to create what appeared to be complete pictures. They gave our brains a framework of what we should see and let us do the rest.
My Favorite Cezanne’s A Bend in the Road is my new favorite piece. He uses splotches and pastel colors throughout this piece, but by changing the pattern and style for different parts he creates several different aspects without explicitly painting them.
Let’s Take a closer look Impressionists have the perspective necessary to make a piece interesting as well as the training and skill to create something classically beautiful. The following pages will provide an example of just how these artists make our brains think that we are seeing the whole picture. By zooming in on a painting we can see that it is really just small shapes that our brain makes into an image.
The Whole Picture
Closer...
Closer...
Closer...
Closest...
It’s just dots
Modern Art
Modern art tends to skew on the side of perspective. There is less artistic talent involved, instead they put more thought behind what the painting means and what we should take away from it.
Modern Art? Some Modern Art completely redefines what art is. Some people don’t consider this art, but regardless of what you see you have to use your own perspective.
Modern Art? Some Modern Art is so different that I do not consider it art at all.
What is Art? After all if that last piece was art, who is to say that this isn’t art as well?
What Did We Learn? The art that is appreciated the most is art that has a good balance between showing perspective and showing real artistic talent. By not using perspective they are simply telling us what to see, which is boring. With no artistic talent it is simply someone’s opinion and there are no hints as to how one should perceive it, which people can’t relate to.
...And that is the Key to Great Advertising.