Semester 2 - Gallery visit

Juliet on the Balcony by Thomas Francais Dicksee, 1875.

First Impressions
Fantasy, Very detailed and well painted. The use of light, contrast and color caught my eye.

Description
A portrait of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. The painting shows Juliet gazing out from her balcony (a famous scene in the play). Uses Oil on canvas, smooth and detailed textures, unfortunately hard to see because the painting is far away. Uses saturated/light colors, which contrast with the background and edges of the composition which are dark. Juliet is mostly pale and has light from the moon cast on her, this brings the viewers attention to her.

Observation
The use of light and pale colors give the feeling of neutrally, cold and sadness. Her passive posture, face expression and hand position suggest sadness, passiveness and worried. Juliet is facing out from the balcony into the distance, the outside cool colors/light contrast with the warm colors from inside the house, which emphasize Juliet loneliness. Overall composition is built around Juliet.

Questions that i felt were asked:
-Why is she alone? -why is she standing in the balcony looking for something? -why is she sad/worried?

Critical View
-Use of light and color work well to convey the feelings of the subject.
-Light reflectively and the use of texture make the piece eye catching. I am impressed withe the detail overall.

-Could maybe use darker shadows around the edges to further bring attention to Juliet

Reflective View
Feels very fantasy inspired, the overall use of color, light, texture, composition is very impressive. reminds me of how turner uses light in his paintings.
I am planning to do a painting/concept art for this semester, I would like to continue to evaluate other artists work and use there techniques to improve my work.