Description

The piece I selected as most visually appealing to me was contained in the downstairs of the East Wing in the Dwan Gallery. The piece hung alone on a small sector of wall upon entering a new doorway, and stood out to me immediately. Titled, “Waterfall” painted in oil on canvas by American artist Roger Brown in 1974. The piece stood in the Corcoran Collection until its recent shut down, which then permitted the piece to be moved to the National Gallery. “Waterfall” is a piece based around the flow of a waterfall creating a river traveling through a village or countryside of some sort.

Objectively speaking the piece stands extremely unique compared to a lot of the other works in the gallery. The strong brown color of the landscape creates a strict, strong contrast comparing to the vibrant soothing tone of the sky-blue water. As the river flows, the diagonally curving lines of the river banks creates motion through the piece dragging your eyes vertically downward, investing you’re the processes of how your mind works rather than just a visual aspect. Alongside visually flowing, the work contains several small villager tents with a select few containing dark silhouettes of figurative villagers, spaced out intentionally, appearing to zig-zag down the page dragging your eyes downwards once more. The tints of the varied colors other than the brown environment and blue river such as the white hues on the rocks and the bushes in the work all have a bit of influence of the blue river into them. The whites seem to have a very slight blueish tint and the bushes are focused more on a turquoise color rather than green as normally portrayed in most artworks.

This work brought about a number of personal associations when looking in depth upon it. The first, is the direct representation of a Native American village. Many times these villages would be placed on a river for ease of access to resources so the village could function smoothly and keep themselves alive as a tribe. As well, the rolling hills remind me heavily of the Midwest grazing plains of North America, bringing out the emphasis of the brown color. Near the top of the work, perspective of either sunset or sunrise evolves, creating a direct association of why the figures are solely silhouettes rather than detailed characters. As the village life is portrayed by these figures, the flow of the river gives its own life to the piece creating an association within each factor. Brown gives a strong influence emotionally in this work and becomes easy to notice. At initial glance I developed an immediate attraction to the work developing a form of emotional content. The strong color contrast provides a very enthusiastic, joyous intent, rather than a negative tone of blue and brown the two bright shades work in a positive way with one another. My initial viewing provided me with the conception that the sun is rising in the work, giving me a very optimistic feeling because I look at every day as a new fresh day, through an optimistic approach. However, viewing the sun as setting creates a sense of fear and negativity, worrying about the figures working in the mysteries of night. As I look closer into the work, the dark figures create curiosity, being very mysterious in their simple, yet, strong silhouette aspect.