Good Essay On Artist Biography

The oil on canvas painting is a visual art (Giddings & Clifton, 45).The fundamental visual element on oil on canvas paintings are; shading, physical, lines, color, texture, and space. The success of an oil paint relies heavily on the artist’s complete master and the skills used on oil on canvas paintings essential visual elements. The essay analyses the Blue and Gold 1916 oil on canvas painting.
The artwork was a gift to the wife of the artist Roxana Grace Breckenridge, by her husband Hugh Henry Breckenridge. The painting was gifted to the school by the second wife of Henry Breckenridge. This was after the death of Hugh Henry Breckenridge in 1937.

The artist was associated with Philadelphia as a teacher and a modernist painter. Hugh Henry Breckenridge schooled at Pennsylvania Academy from 1887 to 1892. He later taught at Pennsylvania academy for forty years. In 1892, Henry Breckenridge and William Adolphe Bouguereau were awarded scholarship that enabled him to school at Academie Julian in Paris (1825-1905). Henry Breckenridge also travelled through Europe in (1869-1944) together with the impressionist Walter Schofield.
Henry Breckenridge subsequent portraits, landscapes, and figure paints are irresistible appeal with color and reveal great influence of impressionism. Notably, Henry Breckenridge first solo exhibition of 1904 comprised of both pastels and paintings. He later produced numerous commissioned portraits that were the source of his income. his work exhibit the dazzling brushwork of an ordinary society portraiture of his time.
Henry Breckenridge began exhibiting conceptual paintings, some that recall the creativeness of Kandinsky (1866-1944). The abstractions that comprise of irregularly shaped planes usually suggested the velocity and nature of the contemporary life. The paintings further exhibit his fascination with the theoretical foundation of color. Henry Breckenridge together with Thomas Anshutz in Pennsylvania established the Darby school of painting on the summer of 1900. Later on, Henry Breckenridge initiated his school in Massachusetts. He later became the director of Maryland Institute in Baltimore. in his late years, Henry Breckenridge, frequently turned back to painting Gloucester’s landscapes, impressionism, and still life paintings.
Firstly, the oil on canvas painting provided, the paintings highlight use of various fundamental elements that depicts the artist personal style of painting. Physical being the most essential element in oil painting has being included in both size and shape. Shape referring to the outside space characteristic and size depicting the three dimension shape in the painting provided. The oil on canvas painting further depicts greater attention to color (blue and gold), as well as, the rendering of skin and clothes in comparison to previous female paintings. In addition the oval woman face stands out against the contrasting background and her eyes have a penetrative gaze. Her bright silk on the sleeves does dot give a sharp contrast with the skin. However there is a shape and definite line that outline the sleeves and the body above the shoulder. The ivory like skin is nearly associated with the slim pleating of the cloth that is held up by the corset with golden embroidery. The figure of the woman in the painting radiated dignity and restraint. There is a wide range of colors and more complex composition that is expressed on the portrait.
In the portrait, the line has been used as the major means of painting style and they have been used to display artistic emotional experience. The tall and straight vertical lines depict noble, solemn, and a sense of perpetual. On the other hand, the horizontal lines on the portrait depict peace, distance, and distance. The essence of using vertical line has an expression of passion and love to the painting.
The color use in the portrait helps to display the woman’s shape, texture and space gaudily. The clairobscure colors also aid in creating visual scene. In addition, use of bright colors depicts calm and candor.
In the portrait, texture has been used as a very essential performance element. It brings about realism in the oil on canvas painting and brings a touch desire upon the observers. The texture use in the portrait brings about a strong stimulation on vision that brings about excitement and impulse. Evidently, realism on the oil painting places a great part in increasing the appeal.
The portrait also uses space as the visual depth that is used in the two dimension image. Arguably, image space is different from real space since it is a simulation of the true space. The space use in the portrait is an illusion space made from lines, shade, light, color that have been used by the artist. It depicts the distance visual space created from human emotions. High or low, big or small, false or true all can make a sense of space in a portrait. In keeping with Frøysaker et al. (4) the color and light shade are inseparable. The former are reflected by color’s lightness. In the portrait, color brings a feeling of vision.

Works Cited

Frøysaker, Tine, Mirjam Liu, and Costanza Miliani. "Non-invasive Evaluation of Cleaning Tests Performed on "chemistry" (1909 - 1916): A Large Unvarnished Oil Painting on Canvas by Edvard Munch. Restauro. (2011) N.p., 3-63. Print.
Giddings, Anita, and Clifton S. Stone. Oil Painting for Dummies. Hoboken: Wiley, 2008. Print.