Art Critic Review 22

Title: Poppies
Artist: Christelle

When you look at art like this the first thing people think is, “how did the artist make this?” After the initial impression is over and the audience finishes soaking up the beauty of the piece then they will go through and start nick picking things out of the art. Of course not everybody does this but for some they ask themselves how the artist could improve the piece or they think why they chose to do it this way. Personally I try to get a first impression of the piece and then I look at the piece carefully after I got my first impression. In the case of this painting the first impression I got is thinking of the Wizard of Oz with those field of poppies that Dorothy and her friends have to travel through and then they fall asleep part way through except the Scarecrow and the Tin Man since they are not living creatures. The next thing that goes through my head is where the yellow brick road go. Did the Wizard and the Emerald City run out of money and forget to pay the munchkins and now the munchkins are on strike and refuse to pave the rest of the way with yellow bricks.

Over all this is a good piece though especially for the harmony of the colors. I find it interesting how the reds and oranges mix so well with the green of the background and the blue sea in the far distance. Most artists have a hard time balancing these colors with the cool colors but this artist did an excellent job of blending them. Another thing that this artist did very well is the use of the space in this piece. The artist made sure that when the audiences’ eye looks at the piece for the first time the artist makes sure they lead the eye around the painting before the eye leaves the painting. Most artists once again have a hard time leading the eye through a piece of artwork. Most artists fail in this because they audience eye will go to a certain point and then it goes out of the piece after 3 or 5 seconds. The artist was able to keep the audience interested in the piece for more than 3 to 5 seconds because most artists have a very short window of time to get the audience attention and then after that if the piece is not good the audience will promptly forget about it.

So the question is what makes this piece special compared to other works of art. The biggest thing is how does the audience connect and relate to the piece and in this case the audience at some point their life may have encountered something in reality that might be similar to this painting. I haven’t personally experienced a landscape exactly like this but when I look at this piece it reminds of some of the landscapes I have seen in the past and it makes wonder if I would ever see something like this in my future. I think the audience would have similar feelings about this piece as to what I just described and in many ways it makes them feel for the nostalgic past and some would want to experience it again.

The only thing that I could think that the artist could do better in this piece is smooth out the hard lines that you see in the foreground. By making the hard lines smoother it will make the entire piece a more of an idealistic setting that anybody would want to experience every day. Also I think smoothing out the lines this piece could almost be on the level of a surrealistic painting because we have to ask ourselves would we actually see this setting in nature and the answer is maybe but we would not be completely sure about that. Most people though would want to see this and I think the artist has done their job of getting people to think in a different way about the world around the audience. By thinking in a different way the audience is then inspired to look at other parts of the world around them in a different way as well and cherish those moments. So I think the artist did a great job with this piece in making people wonder and dream about their life and their future.

Original artwork: [link]