Modern artists, though dissimilar in their styles, all create new ways of depicting emotion and nature. Generally, modern artists rebel against the realistic and structurally strict paintings of earlier centuries, often creating abstract works. Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) was an abstractionist. His painting Girl Before a Mirror (1932) is a world known masterpiece that exemplifies what modern art is as it has several distorted images. Another modern artist is Henri Rousseau (French, 1844-1910). Like Picasso most of his work is abstract, but the differences between the real world and worlds that he created are subtler than those of Picasso. For example, his work The Dream (1910) has the bodies of humans and animals drawn passable anatomic structure. Though Picasso’s style, colors, and use of light in Girl Before a Mirror are dissimilar to those in Rousseau’s The Dream, both paintings represent a subunit of modern art and abstractionism. In his painting Girl Before a Mirror (see right), Picasso draws his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter staring into a mirror. In the painting, Picasso uses a style called cubism. Cubism does not create perspective using a single viewpoint; rather it draws objects in such a way that they appear to come from several directions simultaneously. Cubism also involves the use of geometric shapes. In the painting, the girl’s body is drawn using simple and complex Figure 1: Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror geometric shapes. For instance, her neck is triangle and her head and breasts are circles. Overall, the viewer can distinguish a woman’s body in the picture, but the body drawn lacks many human attributes. This unrealistic view of the girl’s body brings in abstract sensation to the picture. Picasso uses colors and lighting to create different sides or personalities to the girl. The girl’s face has two distinct sections: a light purple side and a bright yellow side. Light purple, which resembles the night sky, may represent her tranquility at night. The light purple side is also surrounded by what seems to be a cream colored halo. This side is also very clean; there is no makeup. The previous aspects suggest that this segment may also represent the girl’s younger innocence. The contrasting bright yellow side, which is the color of the sun, may signify the girl’s vitality during the day. A halo does not surround this section. In stead it is covered in makeup, bright red lipstick and blush as well as green eye shadow. This side may also symbolize the girl’s older sexually active self. In addition to the contrasting views represented on the girl’s face, another side of the girl is shown within her reflection. The reflection is a death head as indicated by the dark purple shading and the black eye sockets. The death head correspond to the girl’s future. Rousseau does not use cubism in his painting, The Dream (see right), in fact the woman and animals are drawn rather realistically. But he still manages to create abstraction by joining together contrasting items. In the painting, the main juxtaposition is a naked Figure 2: Rousseau, The Dream woman lying on a sofa in the middle of the jungle. This strange combination brings together the rural and the wild. Rousseau increases the amount of abstractionism by drawing greenery from various parts of the world. Rousseau never saw a real jungle; he simply drew random plants from botanicals he visited and literature that he read. Rousseau uses colors and lights to distinguish animals and plants from another. For instance, each plant type is a different color. Varying degrees of light also hide some of the animals. The elephant, which is drawn a light gray, is hidden behind the trees whereas the orange-yellow tigers can be seen protruding from the shrubbery. Both Picasso and Rousseau have different styles and ways of using colors and lights to express their feelings. Each artist has left a legacy for others to follow. However, many Picasso had a larger impact on modern art revolutionized cubism, a technique that numerous artists have used.
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