I’m deep in the 19th century art hole and every time I think I’ve seen them all I find another painting that makes me go !!!!
?? you cant just say this and then not share the painting in question!!
you are absolutely right!!
Arthur Trevethin Nowell, 1887 - Captives
Honestly where do I start? The movement? The composition? The lighting?
Look how much more it seems like she's leaning forward because the tree and the man curve away and around her? Like Tantalos who reached for fruit but the tree would bend away from him? That's what this feels like. And then there are these other two, pulling her away into the opposite direction. So there's a lot of movement! But what makes it even better is how he still stabilized the image with a lot of hidden vertical lines!
Also the contrasts? Fantastic! Like the one between the metal of his armor and her flowly dress or her light face vs the other faces kept in darkness or the light foreground vs the dark background,...
Also the edges are amazing! Everyone tells you corners are not important but here? Wrong! Her foot is like an anchor that stop the eye from falling out of the image so it's a lot more rendered than the flower petals.
And don't even get me started on the rendering...
Ok I'll stop here tl;dr: BEAUTIFUL 10/10
you know what I'm not done, I found something else:
The reason why it doesn't look like they're senselessly pulling at her? Because the action is actually built up like a spiral, whoa! There's a lot going on behind her back, but because of the spiral your eyes don't linger there and instead are lead towards her body and then towards her head.
It's not just the spiral, though, there's another line of movement hidden in those hands:
And not only that, they're grouped together in the shape of a pentagon! Simple shapes are easy to recognize, so it tells your eye where to go immediately.
who gave you the right
You know what straight up blows my mind about this piece?
The strain in her neck.
She’s not just leaning away from those trying to restrain her. She’s not just looking at her .... lover? companion? Michael Sheen tied to a tree?
She is putting her full weight into the fight of getting away from her captors and getting back to him. They have her arms restrained behind her back and are actively dragging her down, but if you just glanced at it it might look to you like she’s just leaning. She’s not just leaning. She’s anchored her body to the ground with her left knee for balance, and she is putting her full weight behind trying to get away from them. And the only way you can see that is from her toes curled into the grass to give herself leverage, and the vein popping out of her neck.
She’s beauty and grace, not a hair out of place, and she’s fighting so damn hard the vein in her neck is popping.
DAMN
I can’t even.
