ipl-logo

Jeffrey Smart's The Guiding Spheres II 1979-80

901 Words4 Pages

Jeffrey Smart (1921-2013) was an Australian painter who was widely known for his surreal and detailed artworks of urban and industrial landscapes. His artworks were mostly painted with oil, acrylic and watercolours, and many of his paintings had the consistent theme of dark grey skies. Bold subject matters were often found in his artworks presented with primary colours, yellow, red and blue. One of Smart’s oil and acrylic paintings, The Guiding Spheres II 1979-80, featured art elements and principles intended to keep the audience moving around the artwork. Smart used combinations of colour and contrast, scale and focal point and form, balance and proportion in this particular painting to achieve movement from the viewer’s perspective. Smart …show more content…

When looking at the painting for the first time, the viewer’s attention is caught by the bold red, blues, yellows and whites. The prominent primary colours illuminate a clear visual path for the viewer to follow as the subject matters are so vivid compared to the muddy background. The viewer first looks at the golden spheres, starting from the biggest one, before observing the blue and then the red truck. The white diagonal line on the bottom of the truck engages the curiosity of the audience, provoking them to follow down to the dashed road markings. The process is then repeated subconsciously, highlighting how the artwork keeps the viewer moving around the artwork. Colours were effectively used in Smart’s paintings, “generally using the bold primary colours – yellow, blue and red – and dark greys for his skies. This …show more content…

By upscaling the size of the first sphere to enlarge it, Smart creates a focal point and captures the immediate attention of the viewer. Once looking at the emphasised shape, the audience naturally follows down the line of the spheres and then jumps over the lane to the blue truck before viewing the red truck in front of it. “Much of Smart's direct artistic stimulation came from, literally, a passing glance as he was driving”. Smart reveals how "My paintings have their origins in a passing glance” and adds that “Sometimes I'll drive around for months ... despair, nothing, nothing, then suddenly I will see something that seizes me: a shape, a combination of shapes, a play of light or shadows and I send up a prayer because I know I have the gem of a picture”, inspiring a new perspective to the influences behind his concepts and works. Furthermore, the decreasing size of the spheres as they progress creates the perception of distance and builds onto the viewers' visual journey around the

Show More
Related
712 Words | 3 Pages

The painting depicts several homes, power lines with foliage growing up them, and a blue sky with white clouds. The use of oil works to Kroutel’s benefit in his use of it in this painting in particular, due to the both naturalism and abstractism pieces used. For example, the houses at the bottom of the artwork are not detail-oriented per se, but there is a very real sense to them, as if the viewer would be able to see houses similar to these walking down any street in Athens. On the contrary, the sky is painted in a very thick manner, with the brushstrokes left clearly visible. While in some cases, repetition works to create a pattern, in the case of Athens County/Vines,

Read More
448 Words | 2 Pages

These colors combined with the triangle architecture create a strong message about ones journey through life. In regards to depth, in the image there is a path that is located below the triangle structures which highlights the illusionary perspective. “An illusionary perspective can be achieved through size, color, lighting, interposition, and linear perspective” (Lester, 2014, p. 34). The parallel path appears to get smaller and closer together as it gets farther away. The farther the path goes the smaller the triangles also appear to be.

Read More
1143 Words | 5 Pages

They lead your eyes to the large boat, onward to the bottom, where there are animals boarding it. The lines are also very sharp. They outline the shapes in the painting, giving the shapes a clear border. The next element is shape. The shapes are at very sharp angles.

Read More
422 Words | 2 Pages

I think this is the viewpoint of Daedalus after he landed on ground. He’s looking down at his dead son. This interests me because once I figured it out, it gave the rest of the painting a whole new meaning, and I understood why the colour was being drained where Icarus was. 4. How do the artist’s color and lighting choices impact the message the viewer takes away from the painting?

Read More
1430 Words | 6 Pages

Viewing the painting, brightens the light in the artwork. There is a sense of reality as the light seems to move through the clouds. The faces of the characters are shown by light and there is an effect of light moving by walking in front of the scene. Emotions are evoked when one looks at this scene. There is a state of protection and safety.

Read More
1760 Words | 8 Pages

The appealing factor of this paintings comes from its message and juxtaposition of colours and stroke

Read More
844 Words | 4 Pages

Egley was able to utilize depth in order to render a work that appeared smaller as the observer’s eye moved from the foreground to background. The lines in this painting point toward one single point system as Egley created a perspective work of art by scaling the figures. Even the colors help guides the eye

Read More
519 Words | 3 Pages

For example, in Albert’s artwork green for the grass, trees and mountains. This artwork also has a tint to

Read More
411 Words | 2 Pages

(thesis statement) Body: Bridget Riley’s geometric paintings urge the viewer to look closer on how it feels to look. Her paintings of the 1960s became synonymous with the movement of op art, which exploited optical illusions to make the two-dimensional surface of the painting, look ex catching and not as it seems, makes the painting seem to move, change colour, vibrate and twinkle. Riley is grounded in her own optical illusions and experiences, but not colour theories, math, or stripes, and curves in various way and configurations. Exploring the lengths of physical and psychological reactions of the eye.

Read More
713 Words | 3 Pages

The painting itself only has a few objects where your eyes can go and three that it does have, two of them immediately catches your gaze due to the amount of space their difference in value take . The setting itself has only

Read More
555 Words | 3 Pages

Even the woman’s frame and posture seem to follow the lines created by the railings of the viewing box. The railings are also implied lines, the first thing our eyes go to is the woman, and then we follow the railings to the man who has his gaze set on the woman. The man’s gaze gives us implied lines that lead us back to the main focus of the painting, the woman. The artist also uses light and dark to guide our eyes to the important parts of the artwork. Most of the artwork is dark, while the woman and the man looking at her are in the light.

Read More
874 Words | 4 Pages

This helps to create a close up look at the view outside the window suggesting the intimacy between the artist and the habitat outside. This is because the focus is almost wholly given to the view outside the window. The view, which is embellished by the presence of flowers sitting on the windowsill, and creepers climbing on the railing, is located in the center of the composition. Despite the lack of a line of symmetry and any logic or geometric order, Matisse has been able to draw the attention of the viewer’s eye through the use of bright colours, almost fluorescent, which were used to portray the calm sea with its floating blue boats, and the sky tinted with the colours of the sunset. The calm sea at the horizon is painted with unreal tones of pink, sky blue, and violet whereas the boat, painted with tones of indigo, orange and green, seem to move along with the light breeze.

Read More
850 Words | 4 Pages

These elements help us to understand and relate to the emotions of all the characters. The cinematography chosen also depicts the narrative of the desperation Bertie had for help. In In A Beautiful Mind the colours are bright and vibrant. These colours express John Nash’s emotions of hope. The lighting of the bright colours help the viewer.

Read More
1759 Words | 8 Pages

The focal point of this painting is the flower. The artist emphasizes on the flower by making it the only part where complementary colours have been used. The black and colours against white makes this image very visible, even at longer distances. This image displayed publicly, and is intended to be

Read More
124 Words | 1 Pages

Traditionally, artists portray models in canvas. Meade, however, turns 3D figures into 2D paintings by applying paints directly to the model. This is another example reinforcing how boundless our imagination and creativity

Read More

More about Jeffrey Smart's The Guiding Spheres II 1979-80

Related Topics

Open Document