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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Effective Distortion - Emotions

To illustrate effective distortion, done for the purpose of conveying emotions, I have selected 4 works of art.  None of them is pretty, but they are effective - even haunting.

This self portrait drawn in pencil by Wyndham Lewis aims at a sort of sullen, steely scorn expressed in a clean, economical style which resembles cut and folded paper..


Georges Rouault takes the prize for agony.  His head of Jesus features large eyes looking upward, begging for surcease, while the jaw is clenched in pain and black smears and lines shred the face into sections.



The emotion expressed by this nude from Auguste Rodin is harder to pinpoint, but it clearly has nothing to do with any kind of happiness.  The powerful, fit, athletic man is apparently unharmed on the outside, but he is so extremely and painfully distorted that he must be undergoing an inner agony.



Picasso's head of a grief-stricken woman almost shrieks and sobs aloud.  Broken and made ugly by her emotion, she, too, is disturbing to look at.




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