Memento Mori Analysis

Ansley Adams is the creator of this oil panting called memento Mori” which is located at Curtis R. Harley Art Gallery at USC Upstate. Ansley Adams created this painting circa two-thousand and fifteenth. The medium of the work is oil, and the dimension of the Memento Mori is fifteen and a half by sixteen. The subject of this painting is the skull and the long glass bottle. The term Memento Mori is a Latin word that means remember you must die. It depicts a picture of a skull on a table on top of a stand with an orange glass bottle beside it. The style of this is Painterly abstraction. The skull is color yellow, orange, white, and the color dark blue is in the skull mouth, eye sockets and in the hole of the skull brain. The stand that supports …show more content…
On the other hand, the bottle lines are vertical, curve and thin. The hue of the skull is both primary colors and secondary colors. The value of the skull colors are light and dark, and the intensity of the skull is bright. The hue of the bottle is the primary color orange. Also, the value of the bottle is dark and the intensity is dull. The skull shape is organic and static because it is natural and not man made and the skull is not moving. On the other hand, the bottle shape is geometric and static because it was made by people and the bottle is not moving. The space of both the skull and bottle is negative and two dimensional. The implied texture of both the skull and the bottle is smooth and hard. Also, the brushstrokes are lose and flowing. The balance of Ansley artwork is asymmetrical. The painting does not has a rhythm or pattern. The painting is static because there is no sign of movement. The size of the skull and glass bottle in the work is life size. Also, the proportions of this artwork looks natural. The colors that the artist uses help gives this painting harmony. The artist uses color, size, and height to create emphasis for the skull and the …show more content…
The bottle is orange, and the color orange usually symbolizes radiate warmth and happiness because of the combining of the physical energy and stimulation of red with the cheerfulness of yellow. The bottle is relax and coveys a mood of warmth and happiness. The bottle also has the same color shadow as the skull which is dark blue. Also, notice that the skull eye socket, mouth, and a hole in the skull head are all blue. Since the shadow of the bottle and skull is blue which stand for calmness through death. The bottle also extends upward and creates a movement of going up and out of the picture so by looking at this we can tell that this person thought either wine was better than life or the person was trying to find happiness and warmth through the bottle. The bottle and the skull are positioned the same way and they are exactly the same size to create a feeling of equality between the bottle and the skull. The skull is standing on top of a podium and trying to reach the height of the bottle. Maybe the skull on the podium symbolizes the person will to fight off the urge to drink , but since the bottle is taller that means that the person was unsuccessful and the wine prevailed against him or