Interior with a Book

The painting I chose to critique is Interior with a Book. This painting was instantly appealing to me. The painting focuses on an empty chair in a room next to a table. On top of the table there is a cup closest to the chair. Next to that there is an open book, and on the right edge of the painting there is an empty plate on the table. If you look out the window, you will see a big green field. The reason this painting was so appealing to was because this field looks like a golf course to me. I can see a sand trap on the left edge of the painting close to the house the picture is taken from. Also, there is what appears to be a winding path coming down the center of the field which could be a cart path leading to a green. The painting appears to be done in oils which would be a good choice for this painting. Painting with oils allows the painter to blend colors together and adds a lot of depth to the picture. This is imperative for many of the objects in this painting such as the field and the sky.

Interior with a Book looks to be a representational painting but one could argue that there are some parts that are nonobjective or abstract. A person can see most of the images in the painting and they are forms in the natural world, thus making it a representational painting. However, there are two black spots that appear to be outside the window that I cannot make out exactly what they are, therefore maybe making this part nonobjective. On the other hand, with this picture looking so much like a golf course to me these two black spots could represent distorted golfers getting ready to chip in a ball, making this part abstract.

One of the properties of this painting is that the field is made up of an analogous harmony. The field is made up of green, yellow-green, and yellow. The effect of this is that the field appears to have different shades of green grass, such as a rough, a fairway, and a green. Another property of this painting is the asymmetrical balance. The painting is heavier to the left because the chair, being the central image in the painting, is to the left of it. Also, the cup and the book add to this offsetting because they are on the left too. Yet another property that this picture contains is the implied depth. On the picture plane are pictures that are implied to be three dimensional. The reason they