OfficeArt Memo
OfficeArt Memo
TO:The CEO
FROM: Employee
May 12, 2016
SUBJECT:This memo describes the appearance of the paintings that will be usedfor the new corporate offices.
Wewill use the 19th-century impressionist and post-impressionist sincethey apply contemporary colors, which are perfect for transforming acommonplace by introducing a sense of radiance, vibrancy, and beauty.The three impressionism paintings we will use include the BoulevardMontmartreon a Winter Morningby CamillePissarro, StillLife with Applesby Paul Cezanne, and ParisStreet Rainy Dayby Gustave Caillebotte.
The19thCentury Impressionist Paintings
BoulevardMontmartre ona Winter Morningpainted in 1987 by CamillePissarro has a physical appearance that renders it unique and easilyidentifiable.
Thepainting portrays Paris on a winter morning depicted by narrow,winding streets of a medieval city. The painter shows the city’sbusy life using people scattered through a mixture of hats and dress,carriage wheels, and pillar-boxes all channeling down the GrandBoulevard (Fernandez,n.d).The Boulevards merge in the distance trimmed on either side bystreet-level shops, footpaths, and standard height apartments. On theright, the buildings appear to have business forefronts on the groundfloor and residential apartments on the other floors. The paintinghas an imperial coach ferrying people down the Boulevard, and theheads of the passengers are visible through the open roof. The sceneis represented with color palettes of browns, grays, and whitesemphasized with red and little amounts of green (Fernandez,n.d).
StillLife with Applesby Paul Cezanne created in 1985
Youcan identify the painting using the animated objects on a table. Thepainting has a basket of fruits tilted on the table and a beautifulwhite tabletop, which seems fractured since it appears at a differentlevel on the right side than on the left (Fernandez,n.d).The tablecloth’s thick sculptural folds and the bottle seeminglybalance the basket of fruits. There is also an ornamented jug withred and yellow flowers, which seems to be a blend of the tableclothwith the oranges, apples, a plate of carefully stacked biscuits, anddecorated drapes behind it. Overall, the painting uses robust,luminous, and transparent colors, which are moderate in the largeobjects while appearing more intensely in the small objects(Fernandez,n.d).
ParisStreet, Rainy Day createdin 1877 by Gustave Caillebotte
Thepicture shows a railroad station in North Paris and symbolizes awhole city with objects and people everywhere to signify a busystreet. Caillebotte has created an impression of rain through thelightning, the depiction of water on the street, and lack of shadows(Fernandez,n.d).The picture shows a scene of people with umbrellas, and the mostvisible is the couple at the forefront. There are also men and womenwalking in all the four directions although none of them seems tointeract with each other. The painter combines monochromatic colorpalette of pale greens, blues, and yellows. Additionally, there arecobblestones on the ground, which renders the people to appear spacedout uniformly (Fernandez,n.d).
Post-ImpressionistPaintings
Theoffices will also have three post-impressionists paintings, whichwill include TheStarry Nightby Vincent van Gogh, WaterLily Pondby Claude Monet, and ALion Devouring its Preyby Henri Rousseau.
WaterLily Pondpainted in 1899 by Claude Monet
Thepainting shows a scene framed by green reeds and willow leaves, whichis balanced by the sparkling pink of water lilies on the pond. Thepicture is given focus by the arched, Japanese-style Bridge, which isbuilt across a narrow path the water garden over the pond. There is areflection of the clouds in the water lilies pond, which introduces adifferent lighting condition in the painting (Moffett, 1991). In thisspatially indistinct picture, the artist focused on the surface ofthe pond by using a cluster of plants floating between the reflectionof the trees and sky. The painter indicates different areas usingvarious colors. For example, green signifies the leaves, blue andpurples portrays the water reflecting the natural light, orange,pink, and red shows the flowers shining in the sunlight while thedark blue symbolizing shades from the trees over the pond. Therefore,the surface has garbage that represents the brief closeness of dailyexperience while the water beneath the lilies evokes a calm mystery(Moffett, 1991).
TheStarry Nightby Vincent Van Gogh created in 1889
Thiswork of art shows a night and sky with a spiral of bursting greens,blues, and yellow for the crescent moon at the top right corner. Thelower right of the painting shows a small town placed under a moonand stars, which leads up to the hills and then mountains (Moffett,1991). The sky has the brightest colors, which makes it the focalpoint of the painting. On the left side, the picture has black linesthat bend in upwards converging at a point. The town has light blueand yellow squares signifying the glowing source of light during thenight. Accordingly, the painting is an exceptional work of art thatcreates a sense of calm and beauty (Moffett, 1991).
ALion Devouring Its Preypainted in 1905.
Thepainting’s foreground illustrates a jungle scene with a hungry lionthrowing itself on an antelope. The jungle background is depicted bythick green leaves and a dark red of the setting sun sunrise seenthrough the leaves (Moffett, 1991). The painting also has otheranimals seen through the dense bushes such as a panther on the rightand at the center, an owl staring from the background holding abloody piece of meat in its beak. Additionally, there is a secondbird on the left and a dark monkey-like figure with owl eyes(Moffett, 1991). Therefore, the painting is portrayed in a way thatevokes a sense of beauty and achievement.
However,these paintings are some of the most famous and impressive pieces ofart, which we cannot afford using our current budget. Therefore, wewill use the replicas of these paintings since they will be withinthe budget and still portray the intended sense of beauty, devotion,serenity, and happiness.
References
Fernandez,G. n.d. The Impressionism seen through 50 paintings. TheArt Wolf.Retrieved fromhttp://www.theartwolf.com/articles/50-impressionist-paintings.htm
Moffett,C. S. (1991). Impressionistand post-impressionist paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.New York: Harry N. Abrams.