Activity #5

In 1899 Claude Monet painted, “The Japanese Footbridge”, oil on canvas and in 1627 Juan van der Hamen y Leon , painted “Still Life with Sweets and Pottery,” also oil on canvas.

Monet used Art and Nature as the theme (pg.50) to compose this beautiful composition; in contrast to Leon’s theme of Visual Delight and the Arts of Daily Life. Each art work contains a variety of visual elements and principles of design to build the content (chapter 3) and place emphasis on the subject (chapter 3). Theme is the unified, statement, purpose or description that runs throughout the entire artwork, content is the visual elements and principles of design used to create the artwork, and subject is the focal point of what the artist is depicting.

Monet’s used the forward placement of the bridge and its horizontal blue lines, which extends from side to side as the subject; this is also supported by the title. The content is designed by the use of tertiary colors such as yellow- green and green-blue used throughout the composition to help to support the theme and give it a calming emotional effect. Therefore the art and nature theme is supported more by the content rather than title.
Leon places emphasis on the bright red vase on the vertical axis accompanied by the implied light and contrasting earth tones, as a focal point, however, this is only part of the subject. The large red vase also draws the viewer attention to the other still life of the right side of the composition creating an asymmetrical balance. The subject is the entire collection of still life and pastries which is supported by the title and content of the artwork.

After learning about themes, both artists do a wonderful job on clearly conveying the theme to the viewer. However, Leon’s title, subject and content directly correspondence with his theme, where as Monet require the viewer to dig a little deeper, to find a correlation between his title and theme.