Moma

MOMA The Modern Art Museum is truly a place of awe. Being that it was my first time attending such an extravaganza, I was first amazed by the hundreds of people that were there of all ages and ethnicities. Then I was even more struck at how everyone was filled with a distinct love and passion for the arts, as smiles and camera flashes illuminated every floor at Moma. Aside from these truths, all of the different paintings, drawings, photographs, and their creative nature was also in itself truly astonishing. However, despite all of the pieces of art that I saw at Moma, the famous Henri Matisse works stood out the most. Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of color and originality. He is also commonly regarded, along with Picasso, as one of the two greatest artists of the 20th century. In addition Matisse was one of the great initiators of the modern art movement, which uses the combination of bold primary colors and free simple forms. His most notable paintings that comes to mind after visiting Moma is Blue Nude, Le Luxe II, Bathers with a Turtle, and La Danse. Collectively, these paintings have various similarities as well as differences from each other. Blue Nude, Le Luxe II, Bathers with a Turtle, and La Danse has similar characters, in which they all depict naked women. When I first saw such nudity close and personal, I was stunned because there were children all around looking at these works. However after close inspection of these pieces, I realized that it wasn’t so much the nudity that was enticing the viewer. It was more of the fact of Matisse’s beautiful usage of the medium known as oil. Oil is the most popular of the painting media and its popularity is due to the fact that they offer a great range of color possibilities, and they are durable. Moreover, Le Luxe II, Bathers with a Turtle and La Danse are all composed of similar hues. These include the primary color blue and the secondary hue green. However the exception is found with the tertiary hue known as red purple, because this color was only seen in Bathers with a Turtle and Le Luxe II. However, aside from these paintings, Blue Nude in terms of color stood alone. From one look at this magnificent painting, one can see how Matisse used the color wheel in its entirety to develop such beauty. Especially when looking at the woman and how he perfected the value of her by adding white to create the perfect whitish blue. Then the background of Blue Nude, unlike the other paintings, was livelier in color and texture. Ultimately in my opinion such liveliness was caused by its usage of warm colors. In terms of perspective, Blue Nude, Le Luxe II, and Bathers with a Turtle use atmospheric perspective to create distance. For example in Bathers with a Turtle and Le Luxe II, the dark backgrounds in comparison with the rest of their makeup create the illusion of distance. While Blue Nude’s does the same except it uses warmer and brighter hues in the background to create the illusion of distance. Again atmospheric perspective is shown in Le Luxe II, by making one of the women smaller in the background, while La Danse seems to create perspective by having the subjects hold hands in a distinctive fashion. Overall, my time at The Modern Art Museum was truly great. Not only did I get the chance to meet various lovers of art, but I also appreciated the chance to have been finally exposed to the many great pieces of art by greats such Henri Matisse. Moreover I feel from this experience, that I have gained new ideas on how I can make my paintings better. For example, I realized I can use more color schemes, vary the value of my hues, and even become more creative with lines so as to better create perspective.