Cardboard Sculpture

Some the different pictures I took of a sculpture to represent positive and negative space.

Compare and Contrast

In my version on the image, I wanted to keep the certain elements the same. I kept the three bathers, and the turtle, I also tried to keep the same type of composition. I changed the background of the picture, so it would look more outdoors like. I also changed the way the women looked like, to me in the original they are dark and ugly, I tried my best to make them a little more pretty. I also felt like some of the poses in the original were unnatural so I made the middle woman have her hands underneath her chin to try to show that she admires the turtle. In my picture it is more of a light hearted tone where as the original is more dreary.

Work In Progress

These are two of my work in progress. The first one I wanted to see if I made the picture more abstract, so I did the background first, and than made the bathers separate, I cut them out and then I taped them to the background to try to see if it would add some sort of shadow for some dimension-alism. For the second image I added a towel to the one bather and added a mountain range in the background to try to better marry the earth to the sky.  I know I want to keep the basic concept the same though.

Objective Critique

“Bathers with a Turtle” by Henri Matisse is an expressionist oil on canvas painting showing three women intrigued by a turtle that is at the bottom of the painting. Matisse separates the background into three parts using cool colors, the bottom green, the middle blue, and the top a darker tone of blue. Since the brown turtle and the women have warmer colors with pink and light brownish tones they pop out more to create a sense of space. In the Painting “Bathers with a Turtle”, Matisse places emphasis on the turtle by having its color be a reddish brown color to contrast with the blues and greens of the background, and also the skin tones of the bathers. Matisse also has done a nice job spacing the bathers apart to create balance in the painting, as well as a compositional structure of a circle.

Subjective Critique

     I do not like how flat this panting looks, the background is comprised of three layers a bottom green, a blue in the middle and then a top that looks like he mixed the blue and green together but is dingy like in color but there is not mid or foreground, even though Matisse tries to use warm and cool colors to solve this problem, I do not think it works that well. I would like to make the work look lighter, because even though there are some places with lighter colors, like some of the skin on the women, the work looks to dark and dull.  The bathers in the painting look very ugly and unnatural to me and I want to change that. The woman in the middle looks like she has a monkey’s face and is eating her fingers. The woman on the right side of the painting, even though only have of her face is seen, looks like she has a unibrow, and the way her hair is designed looks like she has a mullet. Finally the last bather is what I assume to be another woman, but looks more like a man to me, because the face is hidden and the figure only has short hair. Another thing I dislike is how big the feet of each of the bathers look, especially the woman on the right. I also can not understand if the bathers are indoors or outdoors, if I had to guess, I would say outdoors, but there are no plants or trees to help ascertain the difference.

Image and Basic Information

"Bathers with a Turtle"

By Henri Matisse

Oil on Canvas

1907-1908