The Beauty of Nature

The Beauty of Nature

Nature, it surrounds us, it is everywhere from the lowest seas to the highest mountains. Many of these beautiful landscapes that nature provides human kind inspires us, and evokes the need to create a visual element that will express our inner thoughts and feelings. Nature has inspired many famous artists around the world to draw and through their drawings to tell a story or a meaningful message. In this drawings exhibition I will show four drawings of nature each drawing has images of trees, plants, and animals that support my theme and different mediums that I will be describing in my exhibition.

ID #:84.66

Hubert Robert, Ruins at the sea near Naples: the “Scola di Virgilio” (1760) is a drawing where the artist used red chalk as his medium. The artist attempted to give certain areas of his work a much darker value using hatching. You can see how on the right side, the cliff builds up in a series of darker to lighter lines the same way the rest of the drawing is done. The boys and the dog next to the sea show how nature and humans can peacefully co-exist together.

ID #: CMA_.1999.49

Charles Angrand, End of the Harvest, (1890s) is an abstract drawing of nature and the end of its harvest. The artist uses conté crayon where he uses it especially on the edges of the paper where it goes from a darker tone to a lighter tone as it continues to the center of the drawing. The artist used paper with tiny ridges and in between those ridges the white of the paper still showed creating that white glow which turns this into an abstract image of nature. 

ID #:1976.3.90

Albers, Josef Mountain Landscape (1990) demonstrates how ink can make a mountain look impressive in size. The peaks of the mountains are thinned out by the ink whereas, the body of the mountains are thicken making them look wide and enormous. This method makes us believe how powerful in size nature can be. Nature's beauty inspires and amazes us.

ID #: NG3588

Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, A girl with a kitten (1745) is a pastel drawing where you can see the smoothness of the drawing and how well the medium has been blended in to give the girl and the kitten a brighter appearance. In most drawings artist's put animals in their work as a symbol of the wildness of nature and the type of friendly connection they can have with humans.

Matthias Stom Christ Crowned with Thorns, c. 1633-39 Oil on canvas is a two-dimensional painting where you can see Christ in a leaning sitting position, his arms bound together, his body draped in a red cloth and a crown made of thorns on his head with blood dripping down the side of his face. His face is filled with sadness and sorrow while the soldiers mock and humiliate him calling him “King of the Jews”. The soldier wearing a red robe seems to be taunting Christ, using a wooden stick and pointing it at him in a teasing manner. The man standing behind Christ has his hand resting on his left shoulder while leaning into him with an angry expression. The soldier in black clothing has his hand out to him as if questioning him. Overall, the posture of the figures create diagonal balance because of the way their bodies lean in towards the center of the painting creating an invisible diagonal line that the eyes perceive. In the painting, the candle that is held out by one of the soldiers illuminates the dark background as well as emphasizing the facial expressions of each soldier and Christ, intensifying the color contrast and giving a warm glow to the painting. The candle intensifies Christ the most since it is directly in front of him giving the viewer a better view of his facial expression and body posture. Another detail you can almost sense in the painting is how the candle can make the viewer think that the painting has a light of its own, it almost looks realistic and three-dimensional, it gives the viewer the illusion of finding themselves in that horrifying night scene with the soldiers and Christ creating a deep connection with the painting.