Art Analysis: Safely Contained :: Papers

Art Analysis: Safely Contained Image: Scarface Artist: Miles Donovan This image is one of a series of four other paintings, all of iconic people. The image I am analyzing is of Robert De Nero as Scarface, an example of another of the images is Stevie Wonder. The image I am studying of Scarface is a computer generated image which was produced in Photoshop, the photo from a real shot in the film. The theme that is carried through the images is that they are all placed on a red background. I think this helps to make the images more striking, which works extremely well. With most paintings, such a heavy coloured background would make the foreground image appear o recede; but the artist in this piece has reversed this, making the red compliment the subject. We could maybe say this image is a stem of the 'pop art' movement; although it contains the blocked and flat colour elements, it still remains to be painted in a lifelike colour and composition, and so does not possess the vibrant colours usually related with 'pop art.' The size of the image is unknown but I should imagine it would be on a fairly large scale for it to have an impact, I think at such a size, the red background would be very imposing and would set forward, Robert De Nero the subject of the image. [IMAGE] The form of the image is very simple, subject and background, both of which are easily distinguishable. The image of scarface has been created upon an existing image of which contained a background, this is not transferred to the artists' graphic interpretation. This is done with all the images in the series, the background being replaced with a shade of red. We see that the subject either appears to be standing or sitting, resting both of his arms on something that is not contained within the shot, it almost appears that he is leaning on the frame. This cropping of the subject works very well to avoid as