The Tube Train
Fernando I. Espinoza
September 21, 2010
ARTS 1301
Essay #1
“The Tube Train,” by Cyril E. Power is a color linocut painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As the title suggest it’s a painting of the inside of a train filled with elegant people from the early 1900’s. The first thing that caught my eye when looking at this painting was the vantage point in the front of the train, which the artist used to illustrate the view of the train as if you are sitting in the back looking forward. The feeling of space was also established by the position of the passengers with in the train and the use of vanishing point line perspective where all lines are pointing towards the front of the train in a diagonal recession which makes …show more content…
the illusion of real space. Cyril E. Power also used axonometric projection by making the people standing in the front of the plane considerably smaller than the people in the back of the train providing the illusion of them being further away even though they are in a flat painting.
The next thing I noticed was the rhythm and repetition for example, repetition was used by all of the passengers sitting down side by side are all reading the newspaper. The rhythm comes from the newspaper which also matches and follows the design on the ceiling of the train which has the same pattern of squares from back to front. This leads me to notice the lines drawn by the artist. There are several ninety degree angles all throughout the painting. These angles and the direction of the passengers’ shoes, create an implied line, which help the vanishing line effect. All the straight edges from the newspapers, ceiling tiles, people’s clothes and faces show order and elegance of the people riding the bus. Next I notice the use of complementary colors; most of the picture is done in yellows and dark violets and reds which are all on opposite sides of the color wheel. The shading on the passengers faces show character and emotion at the time of the painting. While the shading and chiaroscuro in the newspapers point out the angle where light is coming from and give the painting a third dimension appeal. The main source of light is coming from the top or the train and it makes it appear night
time outside because there is no light coming from the outside of the train. There is a radial balance which makes the train look like a tube. It is not perfectly balanced in the center, the vantage point is off set to the right, but it is still very balanced because the colors on the right are darker than the colors in the right. Over all Cyril E. Powers used several art techniques to make this painting realistic in a surreal way.
September 21, 2010
ARTS 1301
Essay #1
“The Tube Train,” by Cyril E. Power is a color linocut painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As the title suggest it’s a painting of the inside of a train filled with elegant people from the early 1900’s. The first thing that caught my eye when looking at this painting was the vantage point in the front of the train, which the artist used to illustrate the view of the train as if you are sitting in the back looking forward. The feeling of space was also established by the position of the passengers with in the train and the use of vanishing point line perspective where all lines are pointing towards the front of the train in a diagonal recession which makes …show more content…
the illusion of real space. Cyril E. Power also used axonometric projection by making the people standing in the front of the plane considerably smaller than the people in the back of the train providing the illusion of them being further away even though they are in a flat painting.
The next thing I noticed was the rhythm and repetition for example, repetition was used by all of the passengers sitting down side by side are all reading the newspaper. The rhythm comes from the newspaper which also matches and follows the design on the ceiling of the train which has the same pattern of squares from back to front. This leads me to notice the lines drawn by the artist. There are several ninety degree angles all throughout the painting. These angles and the direction of the passengers’ shoes, create an implied line, which help the vanishing line effect. All the straight edges from the newspapers, ceiling tiles, people’s clothes and faces show order and elegance of the people riding the bus. Next I notice the use of complementary colors; most of the picture is done in yellows and dark violets and reds which are all on opposite sides of the color wheel. The shading on the passengers faces show character and emotion at the time of the painting. While the shading and chiaroscuro in the newspapers point out the angle where light is coming from and give the painting a third dimension appeal. The main source of light is coming from the top or the train and it makes it appear night
time outside because there is no light coming from the outside of the train. There is a radial balance which makes the train look like a tube. It is not perfectly balanced in the center, the vantage point is off set to the right, but it is still very balanced because the colors on the right are darker than the colors in the right. Over all Cyril E. Powers used several art techniques to make this painting realistic in a surreal way.