Analysis Of Town Of Harrisonburg, VA By Emma Lyon Bryan

The artwork that I have chosen to visually analyze is Town of Harrisonburg, VA by Emma Lyon Bryan. It was created in 1867 and is an oil on canvas painting. This artwork is located in the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University and is around 36” long and 24” high. This piece is a depiction of what Harrisonburg looked like in 1867. Bryan’s artwork is held in a wooden glass frame with a gold border and displays the buildings of the town, dirt roads, open land, mountains, and many other small details. The first art element that I feel is one of the most important to the artist pertaining to this painting is the use of line. There is an undefined, invisible vertical line that goes from left to right where the mountains meet the

The artwork is in a static state being that it is an oil on canvas. However, Bryan has incorporated different features that suggest motion. She has done this through the inclusion of people walking along the streets of the town, the horse and buggy along the street near the far right of the piece, and the individual riding the horse on the dirt road towards the center of the painting. All of these examples insinuate that there is movement and activity amongst the scene represented and that time is

When I analyze this painting, my eyes are drawn to the building in the bottom left which seems to resemble a church. It has a white steeple and roof line along with light red brick for the walls. The color, style, size, and position of this particular building sets it apart from the rest of the buildings which all seem to blend together along the composition. The building’s edge meets right with the fence line along the field in the bottom left corner of the piece. It prompts viewers to begin their focus on the left of the painting instead of drawing our eyes directly to the center. Bryan perhaps used this building as the focal point because it held special meaning to