During my trip to New York, I visited many different art galleries and museums, but the one that stood out the most to me was the MoMA. It was first the first gallery my sister and I went to on our first day in the city, and took us about 2-3hours to looks around and we still didn’t see everything that was on display. MoMA is packed with some of the most well-known and impressive works of art.
Matisse
One of my all the favourite artists and currently an important inspiration for my work is Henri Matisse, and the MoMA is a fantastic way to get up close to Matisse’s paintings.
There was an entire room almost completely dedicated to the work of Matisse, including famous works such as The Dance, The Moroccan and The Piano Lesson.
Being able to get a closer look at these paintings enabled me to fully appreciate the paint handling and the amount of time Matisse put into each piece, which is shown visibly in the layers of paint.
Here are some of my photographs of close-ups of the paintings I saw:
From the top right, these paintings are The Red Studio, View of Notre-Dame, The Dance, The Piano Lesson, The Moroccans and The Yellow Curtain.
I can find so many smaller compositions within Matisse's paintings, that give me ideas for my own work. I also love the way Matisse varies the thickness of the paint layers in different areas which gives his work real substance.
Diebenkorn
Before arriving in New York, I had already researched the galleries I wanted to visit to check which artists had work on display, and I found that there was a painting by Diebenkorn in Brooklyn Museum. I have been wanting to see a Diebenkorn painting since my tutor first brought him to my attention, so I was excited to finally have the opportunity to do this. Unfortunately, Brooklyn Museum was closed on the day we went to that area of New York (I really should have checked the opening hours) and we didn't have time to go back there on another day. However, whilst in The Metropoloitan Museum, we randomly came across a large painting that was part of Diebenkorn's Ocean Park Series.
I find an interest in the way Diebenkorn splits up composition using straight lines and block shapes. Also, I like the colour palette in this painting as it combines a variety of warm and cool colours whilst still remaining harmonious.
I noticed a similarity between this Diebenkorn painting and this section of Matisse's painting The Piano Lesson:
The colours and usage of line to create composition is similar in both of these paintings and I believe this is an example of Diebenkorn being influenced by Matisse.
As you can imagine, I saw so many more works of art than I have included in this blog, but I wanted to focus in on the artists that I found the most inspiring.
I may come back to some of the other artworks I saw in future blog posts.
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