Odyssey By Derain

“Odyssey”, is an artwork created by Cai Guo-Qiang that honors Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao. Qiang’s composition of the piece is informed by traditional landscape elements in Chinese paintings such as garden, distant mountains, towering mountains, waterfalls, and pine trees. The compositional aspects within the work of art is line, value, mass, shape, and space. The size of the piece is what makes mass, shape, and space the dominant aspects of the artwork. Rhythm was a strong factor, because of how Qiang put the gunpowder on the paper in a specific flow. Also, different values and line was made from the gunpowder being utilized. The intention of the artist is to impose China’s landscape used in paintings. When observing, I was amazed at how Qiang constructed the piece. The work was a unique approach to showcase Chinese culture and give respect to Tsung and Chao. After reading the museum label and looking at the work again, my interpretation is still the same.
The composition of Derain’s is the scenery of the painting and his intention is to express feelings. While conveying the emotions, Derain applied shapes or sprays by using broken brush strokes. Furthermore, the arrangement of the colors is what makes the contrast prominent on the canvas. The broken brush strokes Derain developed a variety of lines which lead to the overall painting to be unified. I took the piece as melancholy since there was an unhappy feeling present and my interpretation of the artwork stayed the