PMA Part II (Soothsayer's Recompense)

What drew me to this painting is how it is executed and the context in which it is displayed.    The room is filled with paintings abstracted by cubism and brought to life by a wide range of vibrant, highly saturated colors.  A perfect example of this it Pablo Picasso’s Three Musicians.  The bright color pallet and jagged geometric shapes are in stark contrast to the muted colors and comparatively simplistic composition of Soothsayer’s Recompense.  When compared to its neighbors, this painting kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.  Like I said before, this painting has a very muted pallet.  The yellows seen in the arch way, the shadows cast on the ground, and the train station in the background have all been brought down in saturation to a very dark mustard color, in some areas nearing gray.  Even the highlights on the white statue have been brought down with some yellows.  Meanwhile the shadows cast on the statue are a yellowish brown.  The horizon is also a yellow towards the bottom and then as it progresses towards the top of the canvas it turns in to a deep greenish blue.  I think these colors had a major role in attracting me to this painting.  Not only does this pallet stick out among its counterparts, but it also created a strong and uniquely subdued mood and tone for the painting.  This painting reminds me of when I would visit my granduncle down in San Antonio with my Grandparents.  When I look at this painting, I see a similar pallet to that of the desert area in San Antonio.  I am also reminded of the vast emptiness of my granduncle’s ranch, I see this mimicked in the barren space in front of the train station and surrounding the statue.   The room does not really smell like anything. There is probably a dehumidifier or something to keep the paintings from being damaged so the smell is not really having much effect on my interpretation of the painting.  While in the museum I did not hear any conversations about the piece from other people however, I feel that there was a conversation between me and the piece.  When looking at it, I wonder “Where is that?” the piece responds with the palm trees and what appears to be clay buildings native to south western America and Mexico.  I also ask “what’s going on with the wind?” If you look at the flags on the top of the building and the smoke from the train, they are both being blown in opposite directions.  I wonder “What is going on with that clock and why are there only 11 numbers on it? Is this some type of dream world or a real place that has been tweaked by Chirico’s mind?” As far as scale goes, this painting is a similar size to the other ones in the room (about 50 inches X 70 inches).  I feel that the painting benefits from being around paintings of the same size.  That way the subject matter is what makes the paintings stand out as opposed to how large or small a painting is.   

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PMA Trip Response

Soothsayer’s Recompense

This piece is about 53 x 70 inches, a relatively large painting.  It is surrounded by other paintings of similar size and style.  Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Metzinger are just a few of the artists that share the walls of this room.  It is on the wall facing the outside of the museum.  The simple yellows browns and blues in the painting are a nice resting spot for the eye when compared to the rainbow of colors displayed in the surrounding paintings.  The dull yellows of the archway and the ground are rather calming and warm.  They remind me of Middle Eastern houses made of clay with sandy dirt roads.  This warmth is contrasted by the cool blues and greens seen in the sky.  Then your eye moves over to the dark browns of the building engulfed in shadow.  It creates an ominous feeling.  Then there is the white statue, it breaks up the buildings shadow with a sharp shock of white.  I really like this piece.  It reminds me of when I was a little kid going to San Antonio to visit my granduncle with my grandparents.  The architecture is very similar to that of buildings in San Antonio. There are also palm trees there as seen in the background of the painting.  Even the sky is the same rich blue I remember from my trips to Texas.  One of the things that make this piece stand out so much to me is its use of prospective.  It’s hard to tell what is correct and what is incorrect.  In a way, the geometric shapes flatten out the subject matter in the foreground while making the background recede so far that the middle ground is almost empty.  This along with the very long shadows creates an interesting dialogue between these two areas of the painting.  The relationship between the palm trees and the statue stands out to me a lot.  The eye starts at the statue’s feet then it mover up to the knee then back down to the stomach then it goes up the arm.  From here the eye can either go to the smoke stack of the train, or to the palm trees that are framed by the archway.  Another compelling part about this paintings composition is its the repeated use of the arch.  It is most obviously seen in the foreground to the right.  However, this shape is also repeated three times to the left in the architecture of the shaded building.  Another interesting relationship between multiple shapes is seen at the bottom of the painting.  The sunlight is broken up into two rectangles that are similar in width but vary as they extend towards the bottom of the canvas.  The third and final repeated shape it the long rectangle.  The brick wall forms this shape which is then repeated directly below it in its shadow.  After that, the rectangle is turned on its side to make the watchtower of the building.  As far as space goes, the composition is set up in a fairly simple way.  The canvas is cut in half long ways in the middle by the shadow of the brick wall.  Then the top half is cut in two.  If you look at the building, it takes up about just as much space as the open air and archway directly next to it. As a whole this painting gives me a fairly dreamy feeling.  The simple pallet combined with the desolate, uninhabited landscape set a somewhat surreal tone.  And then the slightly off prospective makes the viewer think that there is something wrong but they cannot quite put their finger on it.  The only two parts of the painting that really have prospective are the archway and the platform on which the figure is laying.  And even the platforms prospective is slightly off.  It may appear correct based on the side facing the viewer, but as the plane the statue is resting on recedes into the distance, the statue stays on the edge. This slightly skewed quality ads a whole new realm to the painting, making it hold the viewers interest.  Had Chirico painted this scene “correctly” and not as flat, it would probably be a much less captivating image.   

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