What's Behind the Paint

This last Wednesday's class discussion was probably my favorite one thus far! I LOVE paintings and all the art that was created throughout history. I knew most of the paintings and painters that we discussed in class and that might have been what made it so exciting and interesting to me. At the beginning I felt that I was about to fall asleep because of attending the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but I soon found there was no chance of my eyes shutting ever, for fear of missing something important and new.

I loved our discussion of the various paintings. My two favorite were The Oath of Horatii By: David, and Wheat Field with Crows By: Vincent Van Gogh. First, The Oath of the Horatii is a favorite because of the story behind it, and second because it's a great painting that really moves the educated viewer to feeling for the women. Oh, and this was my favorite part of class because I for once felt that I'd made a connection that contributed to class. I had seen and studied this painting before, but had ever known the true story. I also did not know that this was a painting painted about the story of the Sabin Women. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has always been a favorite musical of mine, and I'd never connected the two. I felt smart at this point, but also that I had learned something in return. I love moments like these!

Second, Wheat Field with Crows is a favorite because there is so much in the painting that i wouldn't have noticed had I been informed of it's history. It was the last painting Van Gogh painted before he killed himself. There are three paths and they represent the different paths you can take in life. The real question is did Van Gogh knew he was going to kill himself while painting this painting? The path in the middle is the center focus, and it draws the eye at the first glance. Maybe Van Gogh could only see one choice in his future, ending his life. This painting could also be saying that when we think we only have one choice, we need to look around and see the surrounding path choices available. We become too focused on what we are doing that we don't realize we could possible be taking a different, and maybe better, path. The birds in the painting are also crows, which are usually a bad omen in general. Maybe Van Gogh felt that the world was crashing in on him and he just made the first available choice; the path straight ahead. There, there is the irony in that statement; the path that was straight ahead was the one that led to Ven Gogh taking his own life. Was is the right choice? Or should be have chosen differently?

The colors in Wheat Field with Crows relate to another of Van Gogh's paintings called The Night Cafe. Yellow is known to be a color of happiness and sunshine, but in particular paintings like there two of Van Gogh's, the shade of yellow used is not the pleasing kind. It is actually a kind of stark, sickly shade of yellow. Paintings like this one and The Oath of the Horatii are able to create emotion in the viewer and they have a story behind them that brings the character of their artists out fromt he canvas. If paintings didn't this crucial feature paintings would be forever less exciting to learn about.