In New Mexico Gerogia O’Keeffe (1886-1897) became a born-again artist. Filled with inspiration from her time there, she would continue to return for the next twenty years. Summers there would produce O’Keeffe’s finest works, which had become the amalgamation, and perfection of her earliest flora, and landscape works. Of these, Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock-Hills of 1935 serves as a remarkable example of O’Keeffe’s use of symbolism and her emergence from a period of separation from her work. O’Keeffe’s desire to develop her own style can be seen in her exclusive use of charcoal early in 1920’s. Though it she would begin to embrace, and trust her instincts to create art that was unique to her, as she felt that her art education had only served
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During the 1930’s, after the Great Depression, a rising interest in creating art that was uniquely identified as American. The growing emphasis of native subject, rural and urban experience, progressive representations (often resulted in abstraction), and an expression of spirituality through the use of colors, and forms. O’Keeffe had developed an intimate relationship with the Southwest, and her art work, like Ram’s Head was the embodiment of the styles she developed earlier first with charcoal, then with flora, and landscape. In this piece, we see an engaging use of composition; her subject, the ram’s head is larger than the landscape, suspended in air. The background, though typical of O’Keeffe’s New Mexico hill depictions, are present yet distant. The ram head is taking over the canvas, it evokes a religious theme of a cross descending from the sky the horns reaching for the heavens. The sky is overcast, the clouds appear to be rolling away, as if the descendant ram’s head got rid of the storm; a new beginning perhaps. Here, O’Keeffe signals to the lively natural beauty of the landscape with vertical lines in the clouds and the pointy hills below, but juxtaposes death looking you in the face with the ram’s skull it’s horns mirrors the rolling hills. Echoing O’Keeffe’s health at the time, as her continuing struggle to create art but facing the truth that was her anxiety and overall health; during this time, she had undergone surgery for ovarian cyst, a procedure that took a two-month
During the 1930’s, after the Great Depression, a rising interest in creating art that was uniquely identified as American. The growing emphasis of native subject, rural and urban experience, progressive representations (often resulted in abstraction), and an expression of spirituality through the use of colors, and forms. O’Keeffe had developed an intimate relationship with the Southwest, and her art work, like Ram’s Head was the embodiment of the styles she developed earlier first with charcoal, then with flora, and landscape. In this piece, we see an engaging use of composition; her subject, the ram’s head is larger than the landscape, suspended in air. The background, though typical of O’Keeffe’s New Mexico hill depictions, are present yet distant. The ram head is taking over the canvas, it evokes a religious theme of a cross descending from the sky the horns reaching for the heavens. The sky is overcast, the clouds appear to be rolling away, as if the descendant ram’s head got rid of the storm; a new beginning perhaps. Here, O’Keeffe signals to the lively natural beauty of the landscape with vertical lines in the clouds and the pointy hills below, but juxtaposes death looking you in the face with the ram’s skull it’s horns mirrors the rolling hills. Echoing O’Keeffe’s health at the time, as her continuing struggle to create art but facing the truth that was her anxiety and overall health; during this time, she had undergone surgery for ovarian cyst, a procedure that took a two-month