An analysis of Mark Rothko's Essay Example For Students

An analysis of Mark Rothkos Essay There seems to be no shadowing and modeling is poor which makes it difficult to locate one individual light source. It also gives the figures a two dimensional appearance and makes them seem vacant and somber. The tonal range is wide but the use of cool colors (in particular grey and blues) has the effect of distancing the spectator from the scene. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on color rather than detail because the brushwork is crude. These factors lend the scene a cold and somewhat eerie feeling. Rotators repeated use of vertical lines (specifically the railings and pillars) segregates the figures from one another and more significantly, from the spectator. The overlapping of these objects gives the scene perspective, but long with the idea of segregation and a high picture plane, this only serves to further distance the spectator. The two left most pillars are arranged in such a way that they run parallel with the two right most pillars and with the wall at the back left of the scene. Furthermore the figures on the descending staircase and the figures around the ticket booth are along the same parallel plane, and are framed within the pillars. The effect is that the eye is drawn towards the booth along this line, Perhaps then it is no coincidence that the ticket booth also mess to be the location for the vanishing point. These factors would suggest that the implied spectator position is further back along the same line as the ticket booth and the figures on the descending stairs. Roth uses the methods have discussed to distance and segregate the spectator from the scene. Along With his brushwork, lighting and choice Of colors, this lends the painting an eerie atmosphere. As such, Subway Scene is a bleak and cold image that stresses a feeling Of alienation to the spectator.

Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 11

Philosophy - Essay Example Stoicism was founded by three early thinkers – Zeno of Citium in Cyprus (344-262 BC), Cleanthes (d. 232 BC) and Chrysippus (d. ca. 206 BC). â€Å"Chrysippus was particularly prolific, composing over 165 works, but we have only fragments of his works. The only complete works by Stoic philosophers that we possess are those by writers of Imperial times, Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), Epictetus (c. 55-135) and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180) and these works are principally focused on ethics† (Baltzly, 2004). On the surface, Stoicism emphasized the idea that the true sage, in his zealous pursuit of wisdom, would find all the happiness he could want in his knowledge and subsequent inner tranquility. The ultimate source of this tranquility is achieved through the fire of the soul as it becomes connected with the fire of God, who permeates everything. Because they felt that the laws of nature were absolute and that the essential nature of humans was reason, they felt people could d o no other than ‘live according to nature.’ The Epicureans, on the other hand, felt that the greatest goal in life was to experience pleasure. Founded on the ideas of Epicurus (340-270 BC), Epicureanism centers on the idea that pleasure in moderate amounts as well as an absence of bodily pain was necessary for one to gain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear. This was obtained through the obtaining of knowledge, friendship and by living a virtuous and temperate life. The key to how this philosophy differed from other forms of pleasure-seeking philosophies was in the term ‘moderation.’ Although it was all right to have sex, to become involved in an all-consuming passionate affair or to have sex too often could easily throw one out of balance, making it preferable to simply abstain. In addition, this philosophy was firmly grounded upon scientific, rather than divine, principles presuming that an understanding of the world around us, and a physical understanding of

David Henry Hwang - M. Butterfly Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

David Henry Hwang - M. Butterfly - Essay Example The Act 1 Scene 1 of the play describes his cell and his fame for some monumental event in his past and later the apparent hallucination of Song Liling, a Chinese woman performing in the opera Madame Butterfly. The opera has symbolic significance and there is a reference to it off and on in the play. The character of Gallimard has been presented as in contrast to Pinkerton in Giacomo Puccini’s Madam Butterfly (produced, 1904; published, 1935). Gallimard evaluates himself as gauche and inept in love making, but is quite surprising that he could woo Song Liling, the charming Oriental woman. Gallimard was totally unaware of the fact that Liling is a communist agent, assigned to extract the information about the Vietnam War. Though Gallimard could attain high positions because of his Oriental affairs, he was demoted and sent back to France when his analysis on East-West relations proved wrong. To pursue their plans, the communists sent Liling to France to resume his affair with Gallimard. When Liling is arrested and produced before the court for espionage, he agrees that Gallimard had handed over him confidential documents and supported him and his son for fifteen years. At the court, Liling reveals his real gender and appears in men’s clothes. Towards the last part of the play Gallimard realises his own faults that he had kept the false concepts about an Oriental woman who can sacrifice everything for him. The last scene of the play witnesses the death of Gallimard.