John Brack
John Brack is an artist with a distinct interest in life and people and this fascination is reflected into many of his works. A number of his works contain symbols and representations toward his views on life and how people live through it. Such examples of these types of works are The Evening Dance, painting, oil on canvas (1889-90) and The Battle, painting, oil on canvas (1981-83). They are two very different types of paintings with very strong and bold statements about people and the way they live their lives.The Evening Dance is very strong and bold, bursting with movement and hidden meanings of mixed emotions. This work is a painting of many pairs of wooden figurines dancing on a table. Each of the wooden couples is dancing in the same position, but they are painted from a different angle. I feel that this painting is about life and John Brack is proposing that life is like a dance. The wooden figurines represent people, the way that each figurine is exactly identical to another may suggest the way he views people going through life; being totally equal and n
The Battle uses color that blend together and the colors don't give a sense like they are bight and 'jumping out at you'. The purple is coming from th!e top, like the red, but from opposite corners from the red and attacking the blue army. The painting contains three distinct colors and areas-blue coming from the bottom, heading towards the top left hand corner, red-coming from the top left hand corner, headed toward the bottom, and purple-coming from the top right hand corner, headed for the blue. In the background there are faint marks made by pencils which imposes the thought that in life, although everyone lives and dies, they have impacted their world in some way or another, or "left a mark". It creates an audience or onlooker perspective rather than being a part of the painting or having a feeling that you can relate, as not everyone has experienced war. There are closing curtains behind the table of dancing figurines and the title, The Evening Dance may propose the idea that its coming to the close of life or the end of a particular experience in many lives. The manner in which each figurine are positioned in the same pose, yet seen from various perspectives may also suggest that way he feels about the people and their lives, different people living through the! same experiences, but thinking, feeling and acting about the experience from a different perspective. It is about the war of waterloo, a war of territorial boundaries. There is also another army, purple, which is attacking from the opposite corner from the current battle between the blue and red, this may suggest that it is an army that may have been formed from the two groups in the past. The use of pencils to represent people may suggest how people in an army are characterized; weak, useless and replaceable if broken, or 'killed'. The Battle is also a piece with a strong, definite statement comprising of strong lines and bold colors. Both paintings use distinct colors. The round table that they dance upon and the repetition of the same dance position may perhaps imply the way he sees life, revolving and a constant journey only to take you to where you had begun. Whereas The Battle's form has no distinct center of interest, but the symmetrical lines all lead toward each other.
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