Chapter 4 Artist Comparison Part 2 Theodore Gericault " The Raft of Medusa" vs Jean- Antoine Watteau " The Embarkation for Cythera"

Now these two artists are pretty good at getting my attention to focus on a certain path on each art canvas respectively. In " The Raft of the Medusa" there is strong saturation and lighting that makes my eyes scan the picture in a certain way. It all leads to the man that the rest of the people are reaching out to. This is strong linear movement that he uses. In a way it is not intentional, but since the human mind is curious to see what they are raising their hands to we follow it up to that man. You focus on the pain and death in the beginning and follow the bodies and then you see the reaching hands towards him. His linear movement is very effective and is by far very strong. Watteau has a similar linear movement in her portrait. You focus in on the kids to the right and follow the curvature lines that lead down the hill and into what looks to be a boat in a pond or ocean. The fact that she uses dark colors on the right side draws us back to view more since we are expecting something to be there. Its a good effective trick to use so that the viewer can see the whole portrait and not just one part of it. At one point you want to examine all that is going on by the boat, and at the same time you want to focus on the people around the Venus statue. It flows so greatly together. Both these artist can use linear movement effectively and it is fascinating to see that. Whether its intentional or not, it is amazing how some simple lines can lead you to explore the whole portraits.