Preview

Formal Analysis of Elizabeth Murray’s “Back on Earth”.

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
529 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Formal Analysis of Elizabeth Murray’s “Back on Earth”.
Elizabeth Murray, an American artist, is well known for her use of bright colors and oddly shaped canvases. In her abstract painting “Back on Earth” dated 1981, Murray used oil paint as her medium; her support was 2 irregularly shaped canvases that were fit together for an overall painting. The dimensions of the painting are 120.5 inches by 135 inches.

The first thing that one notices when looking at “Back on Earth” is the actual shape of the canvases. Elizabeth Murray managed to balance out two opposites – a blue canvas that is purely geometric and has strong sharp edges, with the green canvas that has an organic, biomorphic shape with softer, curved edges. Surprisingly, the shapes do not “fight”, but rather compliment and complete each other. Murray’s choice of the odd shape for the canvases adds interest to her work and makes it unique.

The use of shapes and lines in the painting itself is quite interesting and unique as well. Soft, fluid lines of light green amorphous shape on the green canvas are opposed by the angular shape and assertive lines in the leftmost upper part of the blue canvas. Murray also balances out this straight almost rectangular shape by using curved line to create an oval shape that joins the rectangle making it look like a leg of a table. In fact, the focal point of the composition, the black oval shape in the center of blue canvas with tentacle-like extensions looks like a stylized table itself. This black shape links blue and green canvas, adjoining them, ties the entire work together by flowing from one canvas to the other, and creates a sense of overall unity in the composition.

When it comes to the color, many artists avoid using bright colors in fear of making a painting too overwhelming, but Elizabeth Murray shows that bright colors, if chosen well, may actually supplement each other. In “Back on Earth” she uses analogous colors – green, blue-green and blue to achieve unity through color. What helps to bring the work

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The symbols:He has used a variety of line, round and curvy in some areas but straight in others. I think he has done this to make the place seem more realistic because if he had just used straight or curvy lines then it wouldn't seem realistic. In the painting there are 9 or more nudes, some on the rug, the sculptures, and the person on the bed, the sketches and a few more. This might show that this is one of the main topics he paints. The sculpture in the picture symbolises that Brett didn't just do paintings but also drew sketches, as shown in the painting from the sketch book leaning on the chair, and sculptures from the 2 sculptures in the painting. In the artwork the colours used are bright, vibrant colours like dark blue, yellow, red, white and yellow. The dark blue and the yellow might symbolise the beach-blue for water and yellow for sand. The yellow could also stand for happiness. The red could mean love or romance and because there is a female figure on the bed maybe it is directed at her. In this case the white is representing the light coming from the roof light. It is also used for the sketch books paper, the scrolls on the wall and the paper he is painting on. The hanging scrolls are painted on the back wall. There is a contrast between the white scrolls and the blue wall. This make the scrolls stand out more. The scrolls are a symbol of Japanese and Chinese art. The windows in the painting overlook Sydney harbour and we know this because Sydney Harbour Bridge is noticeable. If he hadn't used the harbour bridge then we wouldn't have know where he was painting or that he was painting at his apartment. The chair in the painting is also the chair from his studio. This also symbolises that he is painting in his apartment. The chair is stationed by its self on the rug. Because it is in the middle of the room this might symbolise its importance and that its just not any ordinary chair.…

    • 1039 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    earth, giving the idea to use space to describe the skills and difference of the artist…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lastly, the composer conveys the harshness of the environment through the visual use of colours. The overall colour scheme in this artwork shows red, brown, orange, light blue and small tints of green and black. This dull colour scheme represents the colour of the earthy ground- dry, barren and rough. Perhaps the choice of the red symbolises the heat of the Australian outback, and the small tint of green represents the little involvement of greenery in the environment. Moreover, colours are used in this artwork to depict the characteristics of the Australian…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Robertson’s art “Verandah at night” (1936) portrays a scene in which a woman is standing on her verandah looking out into the calming night while being accompanied by her dog. The story this artwork is telling is quite a simple one, by looking at it viewer is enveloped with the feeling of tranquillity. Through the use of Subject, colour, space, line, perspective and lighting the feeling of tranquillity is reinforced, these elements also allow the artwork to tell the story of this women. The artwork is visually aesthetically pleasing to the viewer which draws them in to take a closer look, the eye is drawn to the bright cool tones of carpet and the bright red and yellow of the flowers in the corner of the artwork, this gives the picture…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andy Goldsworthy Analysis

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Andy Goldsworthy and Janet Laurence are two artists who investigates landscape and the environment, but in disparate ways. Andy Goldsworthy creates his artworks by utilising nature’s media precisely while Janet Laurence studies the environment’s architecture through photography, sculpture, video and installation.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chuck Close Essay Example

    • 1005 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One of the most noticeable paintings that caught my attention in the gallery was Close's famous woodcut called Emma. The small squares of brightly colored loops, dots, and lozenges give a sense of movement to the painting. It is almost like looking at a real image through a glass of water. Every part of the painting seems to move and…

    • 1005 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Paul Klee Essay

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages

    ‘In the Style of Kairouan’ shows Klee’s first pure abstract painting, created in 1914. Klee used a simple combination of coloured shapes to express a musical tone. He combined the use of coloured rectangles and circles, slightly overlapping the shapes to create a harmony of colour, much like the complementary layers and effects of music. He also painted some of the rectangles…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    is the fact that a man is playing a guitar and so he paints that. He does not…

    • 469 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elizabeth Murray was an American painter that reshaped Modernist abstraction. It became high-spirited and cartoon-based. In addition to being a painter, she was a printmaker and a draughtsman. When she was a student, she was influenced by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Her works are in countless major public collections, some of which include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Historical Color Palette

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Life in the sixties focused on self-expression and home design was just the place for people to make their individual statements about peace and love. Most of the colors in the era were inspired by nature. The color scheme we chose utilizes the four main colors seen everywhere in the 60’s.These colors included blue, orange, yellow and red; however we chose to use blue-green, yellow-orange, red-violet (pink), and yellow-green hues. The colors share a low chroma, or saturation, and dull luminescence to share a similar tonal range. The blue-green compliments yellow-orange, and the yellow-green does the same to red-violet to create a double complimentary color scheme. With the passing of 1950’s…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dali uses shape to explain the moods and feelings experienced by the unconscious mind. His shapes are a combination of symmetrical objects. These symmetrical images are the organic tree ,the sea and the non-symmetrical clocks and what seems to look like a carcass on the ground. The flat shapes create the illusion of three dimensions. Talyor expresses that the line and the shape of a painting can both affect each other. It all depends on the height and width of the painting. Overall the formal elements help the painters create their work and I feel it helps the viewers get a better understand of what is taking place in the painting. The shades of color from dark to light green and light to a clearer sky are very interesting.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nude Descending Stairs

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The artist uses mostly straight lines and you barley can see three or four circular lines in the whole paint. By doing this, it is captivating how he gives to the spectator the impression of CUBISM or FUTURISM in an abstract way. In addition, he created a sense of movement in the pain by using a combination of colors. If you analyze the paint in deep, you would be able to see that it is not a static paint. He puts a lot of effort to making it dynamic. You feel that something is about to move when you look at the paint. Also, it is interesting to me how using your imagination you can capture the attention of the public making them enjoying your work.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Circles and squares in the painting seem to have no other purpose than to add some geometry to the picture. Unidentified brown spheres speckled around add some circles to the painting, while a five-section window placed alongside the mirror adds rectangles. All of these random shapes seem to have no purpose at first glance, but when one thinks about it, the painting would needs these geometric figures. Without these shapes, the painting would have empty space that draws a viewer's attention away from the intended portion of the painting. Paul Nash probably needed something to fill in the empty space by the mirror and decided that a little geometry would do the trick. The five-section see-through window has five rectangles and does not take away from the landscape behind it. The unidentified spheres add a little more shape to the reflection and give it more dimensions. Geometry helps balance out the picture without taking away the message that the painting…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    People effectively using colour in creative work and digital photography has been around for a long time now, and the study of light and colour even longer. In this essay I plan to effectively communicate how the human brain perceives light and how the understanding of this has culminated in creative work and photography. Although photography as an art form is relatively new compared to classical art there are a lot of interesting and relative comparisons between the two when it comes to colour science. After all photography is essentially painting with light.…

    • 2336 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The head of the man with his hands on it gives off a very distinct feature in the painting. Its irregular shapes and figures create a very geometrical and structural form of the object. Layers of repetitive shapes and figures show a transparent appearance to the object that when you look closer and longer it appears three-dimensional piece; more like a prism which is not really triangular. . The curved and diagonal lines express the movement of the man in the painting as he struggle which also gives off a feeling of danger. Its blue and brown color palette complements and contrasts each other at the same time. The flame-like object at the bottom looks like a fire and the blue color in the upper side of the painting looks like water or air. The dark shades of blue and brown gives a deeper spatial structure to the main and his background while tints of the color are emphasized by the light given in the room. The artist used the oil paint to fully express the potential of each color he used creating a sensuous chromatic ambience. In my point of view, it is not balanced because the legs of the man seemed to be only at the left side of the painting and his curved body (torso) disrupts the…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays