Pagliacci's Bitter Laughter Painting
I based this off of the opera, "Pagliacci." The opera is about this clown that is in love with a girl, but the girl does not return his love. Instead, she loves another man. The girl travels with Pagliacci in their own little circus, and, in their show, they act out a story about how Pagliacci's character is in love with the girl's character, only she does not return his love. The clown is supposed to be happy but he feels empty and lonely. During a show, he loses it and shows his anger and unhappiness. The crowd thinks it's a part of the show and takes it has a joke.
This painting shows how Pagliacci becomes closer to the girl like how a tree grows towards the sun. But, instead of making it grow, the sun burns the tree down, like the girl broke Pagliacci's heart. His eyes are closed because he only wants to see HER but he is blind to the other beauties in life, like the flower that is growing by his side.
(I did this one a few days before my art camp in July)
The thought that you put into this piece and the monkey piece is really great to see. Having ideas behind your imagery is so important and can make art so much more powerful. The symbolism in this piece is really effective and shows that you are able to illustrate an idea without being too literal, which is difficult. My only suggestion would be that the fire could be more distinctly fire. Right now, it just looks like red branches. In reality you wouldn't see as much branch as you have painted, you would probably see more flames. Maybe try to find some photo references in the future to help problem solve things like that.
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ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I agree with you, and I tried to paint flames, but they ended up looking really cartoon-ish and fake, so I painted over it. I made it turn to red, because I really like the way coals look when they are red and heated. But I think painting more realistic flames would've made the imagery stronger.
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