Post Palmer Museum Post

Man and Woman Seated
Richard Diebenkorn

1958

Oil on canvas

This focal point of the piece are the two people seated in the center of the canvas. Diebenkorn puts emphasis on the subject by placing them in the middle of a vast, empty room. This seems to create a sense of isolation within the piece, which is a major theme of many of Edward Hopper's artworks who was a major influence on Diebenkorn.

Diebenkorn masterfully uses color to enhance the artwork. The use of dull colors in the background, especially the gray on the back wall, helps make the two individuals stand out even more in the foreground. He places the man and woman in a very vibrant, but tumultuous orange. This orange reminds me of the famous painting The Scream, by Edward Munch.

The Scream

Edvard Munch

1895

Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard

Man and Woman Seated was released in the middle of the Cold War, just 5 years after the Korean War had ended. It was released during the height of an abstract-expressionist art movement that was occurring at the time. Other artists involved with the movement were Jackson Pollock and William de Kooning. This particular piece was one of Diebenkorn's more representional and realistic works. During this period of his career, he was having difficulties with the "abstract" medium, saying that he needed to take a departure from the "shackles of this stylistic approach." He started to believe that art needed to depict people and real living things in order to be effective.

I really enjoyed this piece of art. The scene that it depicts is very interesting and the way that Diebenkorn creates this sense of unease and isolation throughout the piece is remarkable. The piece  has a sort of tension about it; the feeling that something isn't right between the two people seated in middle of this room is really powerful.

Diebenkorn tries to show the art world that complete abstraction of art is not necessarily the way to go. Most of his other work up to this point were abstractions of landscapes, it was only around 1958 that Diebenkorn started to use people as subjects for his artwork.

I enjoyed my first time at the Palmer Art Museum. I don't go to museums too often , but I usually have a good time when I do go. I think I would go back. There seems to be a lot going on at the Palmer Museum a lot of the time. Like the while we were there, there was a discussion about one of the pieces in the museum and there were a lot of art students walking around taking notes. 

Blog Analysis

Template: I wanted my blog to be simple to navigate and I wanted it to be easy to find links, previous posts, etc. The simple template that I chose accomplishes these things very well and I really liked the name of "simple templates." Sometimes less is more, and I certainly feel that this is the case in this situation.

Title: The name of my blog is "Arty Party." I really wanted to make the title of my blog rhyme for whatever reason, and the only relevant rhyme I could think of was Arty Party. I thought it was a great name for this blog because I wanted it to be lighthearted and humorous.

Color: I chose a deep purple for the background of the title and I chose a lighter, but still pretty dark, blueish color for the general background color. I like dark colors, and I feel as having white text on a really dark background makes the text easier to read.

Font: I wanted to choose a cool font for the title that really pops out and says "Party," and I feel as though the Indie Flower text accomplishes this very well. I stuck with Arial for the general text of the blog because it's really easy to read. I really wanted to change the font of the blog description but I couldn't figure it out.

 Pages: I chose to include a separate page for the "About Me" section. I wanted to have a little bit more space to write than the little section that blogger allotted for this purpose. I'll probably add a few more pages in the future to share my other interests in music and movies and whatnot.

Other Elements: I included a poll section where I will post some interesting and cool questions for people to answer (I'll probably end up getting two votes, but that's besides the point). Sometimes the questions will be fun and not too serious, other times they'll be more philosophical and introspective. I also included a place where you could watch youtube videos without leaving my blog. I added this to make my blog a little bit more interesting... and to keep you on it for a longer period of time.