Art Analysis: Trying His Hand By Mary Ellen Jones

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Throughout the history of art, it appears to me that people of color have not been equally or fairly represented. The artwork that I have chosen to analyze includes a person of color as the primary focus of the painting. The piece is titled ‘Trying His Hand’ by painter Mary Ellen Jones. It is currently in the Oakland Museum of California. The painting was made in 1881 and it is oil on canvas. It is 24.87 inches in height and 29.75 inches in width. The piece is classified as both ‘genre painting’ and ‘social realism’ painting. According to Artists in California 1786 – 1940 by Edan Hughes, Mary Ellen Jones was born in Murphy 's Camp, California on February 10th, 1857. She was a lifelong resident of California. She studied at the School of Design under the artists Williams, Kunath, and Wores. She married Louis …show more content…
There is one curtain behind him and the chair that he is sitting in reminds me of a chair that you would have at a dining table. The desk that he is sitting at looks more like a table and you cannot see any corners of other desks or parts of chairs around him. I think that he is in his home, not in a classroom or at a school. It is possible that he might be having a private lesson at home. If his suit is an indicator that his family has some amount of wealth, then it is possible that his parents could afford to pay someone to teach him how to paint. Even so, I still believe that his father or mother is the person who is teaching him. The title ‘Trying His Hand’ is one of the primary reasons that I believe his father or his mother may have been an artist. He is ‘trying his hand’ at painting, but he is also quite literally trying his hand in the sense of trying to do what his parent does (perhaps). In the piece, he is trying to emulate what he is watching the artist do. I believe that his father may have been an artist and the one who is teaching him how to

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