RESPONSE 02

RANDOM UNTITLED PAINTING

I chose to analyze a painting that’s been in my house for as long as I can remember. I was told it was gifted to my parents by a friend. I haven’t put much thought into this painting until very recently and have found it sort of mysteriously engaging.

The artist is Jean-Pierre Gagnon and the painting is untitled. The first observation that stud out to me is the fact that the five characters in the scene don't have faces. Right off the bat this gives a sort of dreamy and abstract vibe. Their clothes are fairly detailed but their faces are blank. The painting has a lot of movement and fluidity. It's almost as if someone snapped a picture than painted it. Faceless characters make it hard to identify them. Based on height, they all seem to be around the same age. One of the characters sitting on a rock has a bright red jacket that contrasts with the background of the scene. The four others are wearing colors that don't really pop as much such as: blue, violet, yellow and a darker red. The other who is the second most contrasted with the background seems to be trying to climb to the top of the rock platform. The scene seems to be taking place during the fall season; which is suggested by the brownish color of the leaves on the trees and the trees lacking leaves. Behind the trees looks like an aggressive stream of water possibly leading to a water fall. The color of the water is unnaturally violet-blue. It's very evident that the water is flowing to the right of the scene. The leaves on the trees seem to be showing wind blowing towards the right as well. The violet- blue color of the water along with the faceless children defiantly adds to the mysteriousness. It's almost a surreal, dreamlike scenario.

I’m almost bothered by this painting only because I can’t seem to piece together the artist’s intentions. Maybe that was his intention. One sure thing is that this is most likely an impressionist painting and that his main concern was to use color to create meaning and emotion. After doing some research on the artist I found that he likes to incorporate a sense of happiness, joy and peace in his work by painting settings such as coasts, bays and old houses. Maybe this painting wasn’t meant to be interpreted or analyzed this much. Maybe it was just intended to be a commercial product to reflect one’s color scheme of the room it’s going to hang in. Either way, I do feel like it sort of blends “commercial” meaningless art with fine art.