This Is Now Alex Katz Analysis

Improved Essays
Museum Paper
The High Museum of Art is located in Atlanta and is where the artwork of Alex Katz’s exhibition, entitled “This Is Now” is currently being displayed. The exhibition will be at the museum from June 21-September 6 and has several of Katz’s best paintings that he has done throughout his career. The painting style used by Katz is figurative and flat using imagery to create vivid works of art. Katz’s is known for his flat landscape paintings that are on display in the exhibition, “Katz's monumental landscape paintings are executed in what is now considered a signature style characterized by flattened planes of color, shallow pictorial space, and lean, reductive but acutely descriptive lines” (Alex Katz, This Is Now). For example, in
…show more content…
The painting is an oil on linen with a complete light blue landscape in the background and has beautiful white roses on display across the canvas. The monochromatic background allows the white roses to display purity across the painting in a rhythmic fashion. The flowers offer guidance to the viewer with smooth detailed lines that make the image seem as if the flowers are actually moving in the wind. The content in the exhibition is Katz attempt to paint his images as if they are happening in the moment, “Katz seeks to convey the appearance of things as they are both felt and perceived in the "present tense," the now”(Alex Katz, This Is Now). The painting Summer Picnic, is one of the canvases being shown in Katz’s exhibition “This Is Now” and is a wonderful demonstration in which Katz captures an image in time. Katz paints an ordinary family sitting at a picnic table having lunch, but creates a timeless imagery by the great detail shown in every family members face. The expressions on the family member’s faces create conversations and construct a snapshot of the family almost making them seem real or making the painting feel like a photograph. Visual elements are demonstrated by Katz in …show more content…
The appearance of the art adds to the content of the work. Katz’s art is designed to be seen in present tense and he accomplishes this goal through the creative designs in his paintings. The arrangement of the art played a major factor in the content on display in the canvases. In Sunset 1, Katz captures a sunset in action behind a set of trees, this arrangement allows the painting to have the ability to display the sun setting in a realistic fashion. By placing trees in front of the sun, Katz creates the depth needed to achieve his objective in crafting a present tense image. The content of the art is enhanced by the organization and design put together throughout the paintings in the exhibition. Organic unity is acquired in the exhibition by Katz’s ability to combine the subject, form and content successfully. The subject of the paintings are balanced out by the content and form or visual elements. The colors in the canvases are always flattering of each other which then indicates the content of the painting, “The painting exemplifies Katz's superlative handling of color relationships and present images that resonate with a sense of familiarity” (Alex Katz, This Is Now). The free flowing nature of Katz’s art creates aesthetically pleasing and conceptually engaging images. The rhythm that is created in the paintings really makes the images enjoyable to view. In his painting

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The painting I chose was Frank Stella’s “Flin Flon VIII”. It is an acrylic piece on canvas characterized by a mixture of curving and straight lines that interlock, vibrant colors, and an emphasis on the circle in the middle of the canvas. A huge quantity of negative space is present in the painting and the painting emits a smooth texture. The painting is one hundred and eight inches squared, making it one of the largest paintings in the San Diego Art Museum. Its size projects itself on the viewer overwhelming them with its color and size.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How I got to view the world through the eyes of others through my volunteer experiences. When you get to do that and learn something new but other ways to help you are truly outstanding. There are so many things that first attracted me to volunteering. Of course, it was advertised in a way to volunteer for yourself to gain experience however I was attracted by how a little can mean the world to someone else. I help others to simple help, not to gain as advertised.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nightlife Analysis

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the early 1940’s, Archibald John Motley Jr. produced a lively, celebrated painting. Motley was an African American artist that wanted to express his pride in the African American race. He believed that, “It is a culture that is exciting, dynamic, and purely their own” (Harlem). He expressed their culture by creating the piece, Nightlife, right after the Harlem Renaissance.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Full Bloom Some may say it's winter while others may say it's summer, but in Margaret Lazzari's painting "Full Bloom" it's always spring. Lazzari grew up in Saint Luis and has taught painting lessons at The University of Southern California since the age of 33. She has won an artist award for Lifetime Achievement, was subject for an exhibition in Riverside California and received a National Endowment for Artist fellowship. She's not only a painter, but a professor and author as well. In 2011, when she released her painting "Full Bloom", she was set to accomplish abstract nature in it's best forms and that's precisely what she did.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Art is like a window to the mind, representing how one thinks or what one feels. In some cases, it may contain elements from one’s unconscious; elements that even they are not aware of themselves. Art has zero qualifications, allowing it to be crafted by anyone and everyone, while still containing components of its creator and provoking feelings in its spectators. (Rustin, 2008) Of the pieces involved in the Best of the Season exhibit at the Webber Gallery, Lunch With Einstein by David D’Alessandris is one of the more “unusual” pieces. It contains four figures, whose heads seem to be taken from elsewhere and pasted onto their bodies.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    When you’re born and raised on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you don’t get to experience all four seasons like, colorful fall leaves, thick white snow, and blooming flowers. However, on a small island the one advantage you have is being able to watch the sunrise in the east and watch the sunset on the west all in one day. Having the ability to watch the sunrise and sunset as a child all the way up until now I have grown an obsession with nature. I love to watch the sunrise and sunset because every single one has been different from another. The way the colors flow together, they create an almost surreal picture that really pops at your eyes.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    From January 31 to June 5, 2016, The Instant as Image : Moments of Action in Photography from the Permanent Collection at the Neuberger Museum of Art at SUNY Purchase exemplifies the simplicity and beauty of motion. Curator, Chelsea Spengemann incorporates works from fourteen different artists as a response to Barbara Morgan’s motion images of modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. It features the works of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Harry Callahan, Larry Clark, John Cohen, Elliott Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, Andre Kertész, Danny Lyon, Mary Ellen Mark, Hans Namuth, Nicholas Nixon, Edward Steichen, and Andy Warhol. everyday life is captured and transformed into art; making the mundane a demonstration for the appreciation of everyday actions.…

    • 1414 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Atmospheric perspective is designed to suggest a 3D space in the 2D space of the picture, and in which forms and objects distant from the viewer (Adams, 2003). This atmospheric perspective can be seen in the sky of the painting, the viewer cannot see anything distinct pass the mountain, but it is implied there is something beyond the mountains. The atmospheric perspective stretches the landscape of the painting, and makes the painting seem bigger than it actually is. Highlights in paintings are the points that have the highest value in the painting (Adams, 2003). In this particular painting the highlights of the painting are mainly on the faces of the objects of the painting.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Artists often aim to tell a story when creating a piece. Whether they want to convey a message, bring up controversial topics, or teach a lesson, artists try to get an idea across to their viewers. The illustrators look to the audience to dissect what they are trying to say through their paintings and offer them up for interpretation. In his painting, Kapok Tree, Alexis Rockman tells the story of the flora and fauna that he saw while on a trip to the rainforest in Guyana. Rockman uses many techniques such as contrasting color, organization, and tone to tell his story to the audience.…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The painting conveys how the crazy storm is approaching towards the nearby land. From this, people near the shore are running away. They are telling other people to watch out and run away from those big waves. People that are laying on top of the rocks were trying to be safe from the waves. Furthermore, it looks like towards the smaller rocks people were swept from the waves to the land.…

    • 1038 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Vincent Van Gogh created this painting he had to have thought out the design greatly because it is bursting with plenty of elements and principles of design. The design aspects of this painting are great and lead you all over the place to give you a story and understanding of the painting. Starry Night has many design elements and principles. Van Gogh used the primary triad in this painting. Blue is heavily used throughout the whole piece.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The painting is mostly engulfed in darkness, with dramatic bright areas marking focal points of the image. Geometric arrangement is viewable in the small clustering of…

    • 1461 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Compare and Contrast Essay (Fernando Botero) Art Appreciation 1301 400 Rossmery Tejada Professor Moseley 6 Nov 2017 • Work one: Picnic in The Mountains. Fernando Botero, 1966. Oil on canvas.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Description There are various shades of blue and black, splashes of yellows, a textured cypress tree, yellow stars, a crescent moon glazed in its own yellow light, a blue mountain range, fields of blue, a town, buildings was a dash of orange in the windows, a church with a large steeple, vertical and horizontal lines, black lines in the tree, small trees in the town with curly tops, reflections of the yellow moonlight on the tops of the buildings and the small trees. Analysis There are five striking elements and principles of design throughout Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. The first is the use of composition, the second is the use of color, the third is use of line, the forth is the use of movement, and the fifth is the rhythm of the painting. Also, there is a good use of overlapping and detail throughout the painting.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I decided to chose Object 1: Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night, 1888, oil on canvas, KröllerMuller Museum, Otterlo for my design summary/formal analysis. Two elements utilized in this piece of art are texture and color. Texture is the surface quality of a work (Dewitte, Larmann, Shields 62). Color is the optical effect caused when reflected white light of the spectrum is divided into a separate wavelength (Dewitte, Larmann, Shields 92). Implied Texture is displayed throughout this canvas.…

    • 750 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays