Charles Sheeler’s Flower forms (former title) Forms-Flowers
Oil on canvas
Known as one of his series of botanical studies, Flower Forms is an oil
painting done by Charles Sheeler in the year of 1919. Although few colors are
used in this painting, the painting still shows dynamic energy that artist
owns. Thus, the dramatic lighting and absurd curves of the forms clearly show
Sheeler’s interest in abstraction and modernism. Furthermore, this painting is
actually meant to be an extreme close up of a lily, although the painting lacks
details about the subject. These arbitrary colors and shapes show his ways of
looking at nature and how he applied cubistic ideas. As Sheeler avoided to
comment on the direction of source of light on the objects, I love how the
shapes and forms are lighted in various directions, as if they are displayed in
a dark studio with hard lights.
On the other hand, while the
subject was a lily, this painting was actually inspired by one of his nude
photographs he had done in the same year, which was 1919. While we all know
that Sheeler worked with photography as a source for his paintings, the model
was actually his wife. After doing some research about this work, I started to
view this more as a woman’s body. The big curves on each side seemed to
represent woman’s body parts. It
seemed to me that this painting really becomes the artist’s portrayal of beauty.
Overall, the abstracted forms and color really guide viewers to fantasize about
different ideas and definitely serve the artist’s purpose.
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