A Wet Night In February

A Wet Night In February

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Art Critique - Charles Connor’s A Wet Night In February
Arriving at the Museum Of Greater Lafayette, I rushed in for a tour I was scheduled to attend. The tour was of Indiana affiliated artists that had their painting hung at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. The instant I entered the room, a single painting instantly caught my eye……

Charles Connor’s painting “A Wet Night In February” is an “oil on canvas” painting dated back to the year 1901. Its effect was overwhelming. I immediately rushed to take a closer look, ignoring the stunned looks of my classmates and the supposed nonchalant ness of the tour guide. Its label read: “John Elmwood Bundy named [Connor] “one of the strongest painters of the west.” Connor was a native talent, born in Richmond [in 1857] and self taught, he was still a young man when John Elmwood Bundy arrived upon the scene. He traveled to California with his brothers in 1887 where he sketched and painted western landscapes. With his brothers, he was also a musician. [Connor died in 1905, just a year after his piece hung in the renowned St. Louis World’s Fair].”

I don’t know exactly what drew me to the painting. I felt that it reflected the way I was looking at the world at that time. His work depicted a night scene on his way home after an evening playing in Connor’s Orchestra along side his brothers. But, it is clear that on his walk home, he was alone. You can see various underlying themes, depending on your own views, but the one that stood out for me was the theme that life throws many obstacles your way but you eventually learn to pull through them. The dark colors he used and the atmosphere in the painting, which includes the rain, darkness, and desertedness, depict the struggles in life. Whereas the subtle use of light colors, which contrast with the rest of the painting, give it a touch of hopefulness, and symbolize the overcoming of those hardships. And realizing that, you can’t help but feel hopeful and have more faith in yourself to overcome what it is you may be going through.

While reviewing the painting, you start to notice the elements of art pieced together in a beautiful composition, by Connor, to maximize the effect of his painting. Looking at the colors incorporated in the painting, you can tell that he worked from a closed palette consisting of dark hues of blues, blacks, grays, and browns, and a few lighter colors such as white, yellow, and red. From the colors mentioned, one can only assume that the subtractive color mixing process helped structure the palette. The cool effect and low intensity of the colors characterizes the painting and gives it the effect needed to accompany the theme.

The lighting in the painting and the effect it gives advances the color effects. A main use of the lighting dominated the 19th century; it was Leonardo’s rule of atmospheric perspective (Sayre 121), which was first used by Masaccio (Delahunt 1). This rule comprises that the farther an object is to us, the less distinct it appears to be. It also tends to be cooler and bluer in color with a reduced contrast between light and dark (Sayre 121). In Connor’s painting, the use of this rule is blatant since it was deliberately drawn to place you in the painting, and to have a straight forward perspective. The farther down you look in the painting, the less distinct the features of the houses and streets become. This makes sense only because, if Connor had drawn them in the same clarity as the others, an observer wouldn’t be able to place them spatially.

The value of the piece is derived from the lighting, where it is defined as “the relative lightness or darkness of an area or object” (Sayre 128). In this piece, Charles Connor achieved value in the way he used the gray scale, in the way he used the colors white and yellow as tints of the vanishing point, and in the way he added shade to the more distinct objects in the painting to bring them to life. To make you feel what he felt when he was standing in that same place, once upon a time.

Another element distinguished in Connor’s piece is the use of line. Connor accomplishes variety of his lines by using implied line to give his shapes an appearance of having a border without actually giving them one. And by using these implied lines, contour lines are achieved by giving the objects volume even though, to Connor, the lines don’t even exist. He also takes advantage of romantic lines which are obscure lines that are used for the purpose of delicately outlining an object. He is also able to “express” his emotions through the use of expressive lines.

Lines help us visualize shapes; and shapes are an extremely important element of art. In “A Wet Night In February” organic shapes that take up actual space are evident. These shapes give the piece its depth, weight, and density.

Moving on to a different element, one that helps us “see” the piece’s spatial depth; that is the linear perspective. In this case, it is a one point linear perspective with a diagonal recession marked by the use of light colors that contrast with the overall low intensity of the piece. This helps us concentrate on one side of the painting. For, if both sides were of the same importance, the theme of the painting would be missed. His painting, as mentioned before, is trying to put you in the same position Connor was in many years ago, and that is why its focus was all one side of the painting.

Another pair of elements, that aren’t always given as much importance as they should be, are time and motion. These two elements offer a great deal to the overall effect of the painting. Connor here tries to capture a “frozen moment,” much like a photograph (Sayre 159). He wanted us to be part of the painting and to relate to it as much as possible. Most of the motion takes place on the left side of the painting mainly because the right side is less distinct. The only motion, however, is the rain and the flickering of light, for even the people standing seem to be still. Maybe in awe, or like Connor, lost.

Now that we’ve discussed the many elements of art, we’ll shift the focus to the discernible principles of art, which focus more on the unity, variety, balance, rhythm, emphasis, and scale and proportion of the piece.

Connor’s “A Wet Night In February” is organized in such a way that you can see all the “action” on the left side with its patent houses, trees, and people, while the right side is more faded to give a real-life effect. And by real-life I mean that when you are concentrating on something directly, all other things are a blur. All this, achieves a sense of variety. You may think that this particular composition looks more unified, and that is absolutely true. The similar colors, forms, and figures incorporated reach a sense of unity, but “unity and variety must coexist in a work of art [and] the artist must [know how to] strike a balance between the two” (Sayre 190). Now when you think of the concept of balance you immediately assume that there has to be two equal sides to a painting in order for it to be considered balanced. Well, Connor exemplifies a different type of balance, called asymmetrical balance. This type of balance is “established by equalizing the element forces in spite of their differences” (Photography 1). This piece is more balanced to the left, and not the middle as in the norm. The repetition of the houses and trees and the similar color schemes gives off a specific rhythm to the composition, which gives way to the emphasis. The emphasis here is besides the rhythm. It is what breaks it. To me, the emphasis is the light colored background which constitutes the vanishing or focal point of the piece. The scale Connor used seems to be based on a real-life scale and so everything is in proportion in his “photograph.”

With all the elements and principles in mind, the time has come to do what people in this day and age do best: judge. The way I see it, and the way I’ve seen it since the very beginning, is that Connor has been trying to show us that even though life can be hard, and he characterized this by the dark color scheme and emptiness felt in the painting, one will eventually pull through, and that is marked by the “light,” the focal point where he used a much lighter color scheme to contract with the rest of the composition. That was Connor’s intention, since it is what he himself was going through when he “froze” this image in his mind, and decided to paint it. It may have been the moment where he saw the “light” after so much intense “darkness” and pain. His merit was most definitely accredited to him by the honor of having this particular piece hung at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, which can also be seen as a measure of the painting’s success, and its historical significance. Not to mention its deep impact, for it helped me, as well, see the “light.”

Bibliography
Asymmetrical, or Informal, Balance. Integrated Publishing. 10 Nov. 2004 http://www.in fodotinc.com/photography1/ph20977.htm

Delahunt, Michael. ArtLex on Aerial Perspective. 2004. ArtLex Art Dictionary. 10 Nov. 2004. http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/aerialperspective.html

Sayre, Henry M. A World of Art. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2004.

Disclaimer

The above essay was written by Noor Yacoub and merely states opinions by a college student. However, if you feel strong about responding to the opinions stated, please write to articles@directorym.com and express your concerns.



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