Arthur Cleveland

Arthur Cleveland

Shannon A. Young
Intro to Visual Art
Art Critique
3/20/2008




One of the world's greatest painters has an exhibition located in the Arkansas Art Center called "Something Waits Beneath It: Early Works by Andrew Wyeth 1939-1969."   Wyeth was an American Realist painter born in 1917.   In 1946, Wyeth created one of his most precious paintings.   Authur Cleveland, a painting of one of his neighbors, was painted with tempura on a size 42 x 30 3/4" Masonite and was originally located in the Delaware Art Museum.   Wyeth's neighbor Authur Cleveland lost his house to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and this greatly contributed to the decline of his health.   Although Authur died shortly before he was evicted, Wyeth was able to catch a stunning still image, with great detail and value.   Wyeth paints his main attraction, Authur Cleveland, so he is seen just from a glance.   He paints his shirt the primary color of blue, which stands out from the rest of the painting because the surrounding area is mostly black and white.   This blue shirt then draws you to the man's facial expression.   The blue shirt emphasizes the sadness in the composition.

Implied light comes in from the left of the painting, reflecting off of his bright blue shirt plus the right side of his face and arm.   The light beaming from this direction also casts a shadow of the bed post on the bed and a large detailed shadow on the ceiling.   There is also a little bit of light shining in the three small windows located in the top of the door behind Authur increasing the detail of the door's frame.   Wyeth's use of down vertical lines on the walls, doors, bed post, and even on Cleveland’s body frame, show the sadness throughout the whole painting; as well as the vertical lines in the floor.   All of the vertical lines bring about the use of rectangular shapes in the composition as the door frames, the small windows in the door behind him, the bed mattress and posts, and also the half picture on the back...