Irving Penn: A Formal Analysis

My first impression when I viewed Mouth (for L'Oréal), New York, by Irving Penn, was wow, it’s so beautiful and colorful. When you look at this picture, you see a person’s lips with several different lipstick colors on them. The subject of this painting is obviously the lipstick, the colors in the pictures are different shades of red, purple, pink and brown, they are the focus point. The lipstick makes texture on the lips, creating a beautiful three-dimensional effect. I see several lines in this picture, mostly curved lines, there are no definite lines and the forms I see are basically the lips, nose and lipstick. When I look at this picture, the things that I draw my eyes to are the different shades of lipstick on the lips. The color is so beautiful and eye catching, it’s difficult to not look at it. In this picture the contrast is very interesting, the whole picture is black and white, other than the lips, and they are extremely colorful and vibrant. As for rhythm, there is none. And for the emphasis, it is obviously the …show more content…
The message the artist is trying to convey is that everyone’s different and unique in their own way, they just have different ways of showing people that. When I look at this piece I feel happy because I see all the different colors stand out on a blank face, it’s showing me that this makeup is about more than making someone look pretty, it’s about making someone feel pretty. And that’s the most important thing to do, to feel pretty, because then you are confident, and being confident is the prettiest thing a girl can be.
In my opinion, this artwork reminds me of myself and how unique and different I am, it shows me that everyone has different ways of expressing themselves, and to never be ashamed of it. I believe the artist is trying to say that you can be unique in any way you