Roofs, Washington Square

Work

For this project, I choose Edward Hooper's "Roof, Washington Square", which was created in 1926. It is currently displayed in Carnegie Museum of Art. The art piece is describing a house roof in Washington. The artist intentionally ignored all the skyscrapers and leaved a pure sky at the top of the painting. Actually, Edward had stayed on the roof for days to observe angles, shadows and all the details. This was painted after Edward learned etching. He said "after doing etching, my painting begins criticizing." And we can feel the preciseness and the power underneath those lines and strokes. I choose this painting also because the whole painting is quite unique. It seems like some random daily scene without anything special, but at the very first sight I could feel its power and I was kind of being absorbed into the painting. It feels so strong and makes me feel powerless and trapped in some interesting way.

Experience and Response

Summary of notes, experience and immediate feelings:

The strokes are so strong, but they are still precise. Those strokes are not inspired by feelings, but seem like created by precise observation and careful consideration. Also, the lines are pretty straight and parallel. This kind of repetition does not feel boring because the colors, which are influenced by lights and shadows, vary a lot. However, those parallel lines still give some sense of order and unfreedom.The contrast between sky and ground scene makes me feel those chimneys are trying to grow and escape, but they can never make it. The red is dark. The shadows are so clear and we can feel there is even no cloud in the sky. Everything is exposed and clear. So I feel kind of depressed due to the power and indication of the painting. The whole painting is quite vivid, but not too vivid. The painter actually learned etching before doing this painting, which can explain why his strokes and lines are so strong and organized. Also, he eliminated some skyscrapers which should have been showed in sky. The author actually not just documented surroundings but really created the art piece.

Product

So, in one hour's work, I got this. I tried to express my feeling of depression and unfreedom. Also, I tried to reproduce the power and strength in the original painting.

First, I feel that those chimneys give me a sense of standing still. And their repeating pattern reminds me of soldiers. Also, "soldier" also implies power, order and unfreedom. So soldier becomes my first intuition. I cropped the standing one on the left and replicate it several times on my new work. Then, I changed their positions, sizes and angles, but basically are all in the standing position.

Then, to avoid painting being boring, I liquified those soldiers and intentionally made their heads smaller. I want to express that those soldiers just obey orders without any free will and thinking.

Then I chose this red flag to be my ground background. Because I tried to convey depression and desperateness, I chose this flag as background picture. Then, to avoid political implication, I wiped the yellow part. I really love those black dirts on the flag. Black and red mixed together feels so powerful and desperate.

I did not simply use it. Instead, I copied couple of flags and randomly ordered them. They I liquified them and filled out all the whiteness between spiders and flags. Actually they look very  good.

Then, to give a dramatic contrast between sky and ground, I chose grey blue because it is lighter and feels unhappy. To suggest the order, I also drew straight black lines on the work  and varied their length, angle and hight. They emphasize the feeling of order. Then, to convey my feeling of unfreedom more clearly, I drew random grey crossing on the canvas. In this way, soldiers seem like being trapped, which is exactly the same as I feel in the original painting.

Finally, I used darker blue to fill out all the sky and finally made my first abstract expressionism work. Yeah:)

I actually really like it because I put lots of thoughts into it and it looks very nice as well!

Reflection

First, every art piece, no matter abstract or realism, are purely artists' original work. Realistic paintings are not as simple as copying real life stuff. Artists also intentionally create the relationship between objects, the 3D perspective, composition and the reaching-heart feeling through the painting. The thoughts behind the paintings are so powerful that you can feel them at the very first sight of those art pieces. Also, to see the painting face to face is quite different from to see them on the screen. Paintings are more like 3 dimensional things. I can see the strokes and can even imagine the motions when artists are creating them. The artist's thoughts, experiences are directly passed to me through those paintings.

When reproducing those paintings, I understood more on the abstract artists side. Abstract artists are not just picking up things randomly and doing random strokes. At this time, I thought a lot about choosing what kind of elements to express my feeling in the strongest and most proper way. And even this is just for a student like me. For those artists who have more inspirations and emotions, they must try thousands of times harder to think about how to express their ideas and experiences to viewers: colors, compositions, shapes, etc. I also learned to understand abstract art in more ways. First, I can try my best to feel the emotions in those paintings, to feel the immediate impression. Then, I can carefully analyze those elements in the art and have a deeper understanding in the artists' ideas and experiences, to get more information about the painting. That's just so fun!