Compare and Contrast Art Review

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

This comparison and contrast essay is based on the work of Henri Matisse, "Woman Reading" and Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, "Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat". When I think of the painting, I think of warm and vivid colors with the smelling of mediums and turpentine. I am thinking of oil paintings. Oil paintings take longer to dry. These paintings are done with natural pigment from plants and deposits of minerals. Most artists often use a sketch of some kind before doing the actual painting.

Henri Matisse grew up in France where his parents owned a flower business. Mr. Matisse's father sent him to school in Paris to study law. While there, he became very ill with appendicitis. During his time at this parents' home, his mother purchased him a box of paints, brushes and a do-it-yourself book on painting. This resulted in some extraordinary work. At that time, Henri knew that he wanted to become a painted and he returned to Paris and became a full-time art student. He was very proficient in traditional techniques of French art. A painting for him was lines, shapes and colors, before it became a depiction of a nameable object. He abandoned many of the "rules" of art as it was ten understood.

The Woman Reading is an oil on canvas painting. The subject of this painting is a woman reading. The interior has an emphasis on the pictures on the wall, which can be suggestive of his preoccupation of the artist's workspace. It has a strong visual vibration of intense color. The painting is medium consisting of pigments suspended in drying oils. The consistency of the oil paint is a smooth, butter paste. It has broad aggressive strokes and a bold use of primary colors.

Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun came along during a period where it was uncommon to be a female artist. She put her best effort to overcome this adversity. Women painters were not recognized as much as men painters were, but that because her artwork had its own uniqueness. Ms. Vigee-Lebrun was provided art lessons from her father who was an artist. Even though she started taking lessons during her youth, she was mostly self-taught. At age 15, she demonstrated such skill that she was able to provide support for herself, her widowed mother and brother. He married their landlord, Jean Baptise Pierre Leburn, who has a prestige art dealer and artist that influenced most of her paintings. Later in life, she was summoned to Versailles to become the official painter of Queen Marie Antoinette. Throughout the years, she painted the Queen more than thirty times. She was eventually admitted to the French Academy of Arts, which was a great accomplishment because most women at the time were denied entry into such programs.

The Self Portrait in a Straw Hat was generally regarded as "bad" work. The painting looks ordinary and conventional. It does show