I chose the amazing work of Gauguin, an artist that has truly inspired me with his work. The piece is called "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where are we Going?" This title presents three very important questions, but it's the mistery of the painting that drew my eyes to it and gives meaning to the unanswerable questions.
Visually; there are many factors that play into analyzing a work of art. There are clearly three focal points in this piece, and they basically devide the work into the three questions posed in the title. We know from history that Guaguin talked about his work, and he explained that the image has to be read from right to left; the three sections represent the answers to the three questions. At the right we see a newborn, towards the middle a working young adult, and at the left an old woman. This sequential aspect is very effective in this piece. There are many angles in this image, some curves but mostly angles and triangles. The color gives a life to this piece, because it is very unique; the color sets the mood. Nature and life are the background, and they evolve with the sequential story of the image.
If we try to place Gaugun's piece into McCloud's picture plane it would be close to realism but starting to move towards abstraction becuase of the meaning in this piece. But it covers a broad part of the picture plane because it includes icons, and symbolic meanings. This is a profound piece and I love that we have access to these kinds of paintings at the MFA.
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