FINE ART CRITIQUE

My art word of the week is, SPACE
According to Schirrmacher and Fox (2009), there are two types of space:

1. positive space - the space taken up with lines, colours, shapes, and forms. (subject matter, content, and design occupy positive space)
2. negative space - the space left between or surrounding subject matter, symbols, or shapes.

This week, we headed over to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) to take a look at the artwork, and ultimately choose one to critique here! I chose an oil on canvas painting done by Paul Peel (a Canadian painter) and his piece was named "The Young Biologist".

This painting highlights a boy standing upright, observing a frog on the ground (the positive space in the painting). We can tell that the boy is looking in the direction of the frog as his whole head is on a slight downward angle towards it. The negative space would therefore be the background of the pathway and the green bushes.

When I look at this photo, I see a young child pondering what to do in a new situation. It felt like a photo that all of us in our program can relate to. If you take a closer look, you will see that the boy is holding what appears to be a small watering can behind his back. Is he purposely hiding it to so he can use it to catch the frog with it later? You can also notice the boy's stance with his feet wide apart. It does not look as if he is willing to move anytime soon. It makes me wonder, is he afraid to take a closer look at the frog? Why is he standing so far away? Also, the boy is standing alone. Why is that? Where were his parents at the time? As educators, we can be ready for these spontaneous moments of learning and help facilitate their learning!

I remember back in grade two, our class had done a project on frogs. We had kept a frog in our classroom for a week to observe and then we took a field trip outdoors to try and find frogs. Speaking of finding frogs, I found this clip of an Australian frog quite fascinating. This one would definitely be a tricky one to spot, check it out!

References

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children (6^th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar.