I finished this painting when I was a sophomore in Undergrad. I was in the midst of a class about composition taught by Paul Hartley- An excellent professor at East Carolina University- definitely my favorite... anyway... He had just finished talking about how artists have used many forms of repetition within a painting to help bring the work together with some sort of order. (He explained it much better). I was just beginning to grasp the concept... still don't fully have it... but I remember being extremely excited about repeating the shape of the holly on her shirt with her pigtail on the right. Although my use of repetition in this painting is anything but subtle, it's a lot of fun to look at other artworks with this concept in mind- trying to notice the unique ways different artist have pulled this off. For example, check out Guernica. Look at the horse's tongue- It's the same shape as the triangular things coming out of the light on the ceiling. Or- the horse's ear- It's very similar to the flame of the candle right beside it. These similar shapes keep the eye darting back and forth and moving about the painting. This device can also be used to take attention away from something that has become a focal point, keeping your eye from getting stuck there. Guernica is full of repetition, just like many of Picasso's works. So, for those of you that believe artists are only right-brained people overflowing with feeeeeeelings... you have something else to think about now.
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If you scroll down to the "Reflections" post (the one with the happy meal toys) you can check out some other shapes I was trying to repeat. I repeated the wheel on Miss Piggy's bicycle in the background to the left of her; I did the same thing with the California Raison's hand.
hey, that guernica one is in our office. i mean, not the original. unless the original is a poster. but the california raisin one is not. sorry.
had i never known you, dearest lady of the wind, i would never know the deepest complexities that make up the composition of fine art such as yours. indeed, i cannot look at a painting without recognizing these elements which you so eloquently utilize. thank you for helping to make art more than just overlooked decoration.
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