COMPARATIVE :: essays papers

COMPARATIVEHomer Winslow and Jules Breton, 2 men photo the canvas of the nineteenth century. Comparing their art gives birth to numerous differences and odd qualities hidden within their work and lives. Dressing For The Carnival, Homer 1877, and The Weeders, Breton 1868, are handsome examples of their careers as artists. Beyond the aesthetic merits of his work, Breton is significant as the painter whose romance of French rural life best embodies a set of recent nineteenth- century ideals the charm and wholesomeness of rustic ways, the nobility of living close to the soil, the peach tree of preindustrial landscape, and the social harmony of the agrarian community. ( Sturges) Bretons work was unique in content, painting for himself, impressing his personal set to the viewer. Although he did not fit the mold, by producing classical and historical works, there were other artists struggling with expression and values of a newer mind, artists like Winslow Homer. While he was at wor k in Petersburg, it became known to a group of fine young fire-eaters that he was consorting with the blacks, and they opinionated to drive him out of town as a d-d nigger-painter. Word had number to him that the place was to be made too hot for him, but he paid no attention to the warning. ( Hendricks) Both Breton and Homer were leaders for impressionism, however, the two works mentioned above vary greatly. Both artists foc hired on resembling subject matter, figures in a scene or landscape. However a closer observation of specific images, narrative, symbols, sources, and process divide the two pieces to adjourn sides of late eighteen hundreds paintings. Physical elements such as composition, position of figures in space, brush work, color, viewpoint, and surface treatment all contribute to this separation of uniform subject matter. The composition of The Weeders is un cropped, fairly balanced and isosceles. The fore domain is bold, the middle ground is expansive and the back ground strong and deep. Our view is that of perhaps a weeder on the field. Homers Carnival is cropped and less symmetrical with figures emerging from off the canvas. Less emphasis is placed on use of foreground, in turn creating less depth. Bretons figures hold much causal agency and expression, women working the field are crouched close to the viewer. Farther back a woman stands alone, basket full, gaze and body positioned toward the setting sun. The women weeding are bend and tired.