Assignment one: Compare and ContrastThe first painting I chose to study was by Scott Bertram and is displayed on the third floor of the University Center. The majority of this painting is black white and grey, with a large salmon blotch in the bottom right corner. The painting is a diptych, made up of two panels. Each panel is 60” wide by 52” high. It is split through the horizon almost evenly at the centre. The grey-white background gives contrast to the black lines that appear to depict mountain-like designs. There are four mountainous shapes in the background: two are overlapping on the right panel, a large mountain spreads across the centre of both panels, and a small mountain is placed in the far left side. The overlapping, differentiation of size, and spacing all influence the perspective of the viewer, and cause the mountains to appear on different planes. All of the mountains have a misty white inconsistently painted over them. This also helps the viewer see these shapes as mountains because the white looks like snow that has fallen on the rough surface of the inconsistent rock face. The foreground appears to be layered or painted over top the mountains in the background, helping to create the idea of distance. The foreground has a base of white and grey paint. The division between the back and foreground is not a clear-cut line; it is also mountain like, with pointed edges. The mountain look of the white and grey foreground is achieved by having the grey act as contrast in small streams, creating rock texture. Also, black graffiti-like lines cover a lot of the bottom of the foreground, as well as above of the mountains in the background. Some of these
McMann 3black lines seem less arbitrary and more helpful to the eye to emphasize the shape of the mountains. Nevertheless , in contrast to the more helpful black lines, there are also graffiti-like black lines painted randomly throughout the panels. Finally, there is a salmon colored blotch painted in the bottom right corner. To me, this salmon blotch does not appear to have a specific, meaningful shape. This painting produces an impression of a dream or fantasy like thought because of the misty paint.
I also chose to look at the painting Leaf From An Album of Landscapes by Shitao from the 17th century. This Shitao painting is neutral in its color scheme. This painting has sepia tones, blacks and light blue ink. It is a Chinese painting done by Shitao while living as a refugee in a Buddhist temple when the Manchu took over the Ming. There is a monk painted nearly at the centre of this painting, and he is seated in a hut. This painting is 9.5” wide by 11” high. The monk and the hut seem to be situated in a mountain. There are mountains behind the main mountain to create depth in the otherwise minimalistic painting. The mountains rocky surface is created through vein like lines within the chunked, larger rocks in the mountain. The ‘veins’
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This painting is considered the finest of a series of painted chisel patterns, made by the Chinese painter Panchamurthy. This is the first time that this is painted on Chinese porcelain. The pattern was written on paper by the painter. It depicts a peasant holding a pendant in both hands, and is similar to the one on the painting leaf from. The leaf being of Chinese form of the Manchu religion. This painting was not very popular among Chorokol, but was not removed by the Manchurrian government. It is a similar painting on 亮鏡有酒酐改. This same image is seen on a painting by a Chinese soldier at the front of the Chorokol Army in the Tang San War. The man in the background is said to be a peasant who has been with them for two years, but has not yet been paid with a medal or a sword. All these features were included on this painting.
The pattern is so well done that I took advantage of a special method of painting patterns, the samboti technique which is used by most Chinese artistes to create unique character pieces. Here I will refer to each of these to present you with a list of patterns. The patterns are arranged by type in order, along with the corresponding art name and other details (details that could be described as such). At no point along the design are lines as simple for the viewer as the patterns so it is important to take the time to understand that this is a design by art historians. If you take a deep look at the pattern, you will observe that it is as simple as simple as 1, 2, or 3 letters. You have to be aware though that while the shape of the pattern is very simple, it doesn’t quite match the pattern that is printed on the Chinese paper like the patterns shown in the picture. Because the pattern has been written on a piece of paper, this may take a long time for a piece of Chinese writing to be made.
Below is a simple illustration of a samboti shape on the page of Shitao’s 1782 painting “Hai-hai-khai” in the 1790 Poetry of the Han Dynasty. The background is the same as that below but the lines across the left side are not drawn horizontally. It is common to paint as part of a book, not as part of a painting.
The “Namihalama” pattern, in Chinese, was published in the 18th century. In ancient times when Chinese was the official language, it was also