Themes in Art Essay
There are many different themes in art, but one that I’ve always been drawn to is mosaic/photo mosaic artworks. Mosaic works are where there are many different shapes coming together to make the final image, and photo mosaic is where other pictures come together to form the final image. I’ve always been fascinated with these types of artworks, and it all stems from the time I spent at Children’s Hospital. I’ve been there my fair share of times in my life from all my sicknesses, but one thing that always stuck out to me there was an artwork that they had on the wall. It was a picture of one of the Columbus Blue Jackets players, but upon closer inspection, you could see that it was made up of smaller pictures of other players. Every time I walked by the wall that it was on, I forgot all about the fact that I was in the hospital, all I remember thinking was “Wow, that’s awesome that it’s made up of smaller pictures.” I like to think of mosaic and photo mosaic artworks as numbers (abstract as odd numbers and non-abstract as even). You can take any number odd or even, and if you add it to itself you will always get an even number. It doesn’t matter if the things that make up the artwork are abstract (odd) or actual images themselves (even), adding them to themselves will create a beautify work of are that you can tell exactly what it is, no matter what it is made up of.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find the original picture of the Blue Jackets player, but the first image I want to talk about is a photo mosaic of the Mona Lisa (Image 1). The reason that I like this artwork so much is because it takes one of the most iconic paintings, Mona Lisa, and almost flips it on its head. Making a mosaic is fascinating enough in itself, but taking something like the Mona Lisa and turning it into a mosaic seems very bold. Again, the Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable paintings, but in this work it is made out of everything from pictures of starfish to what seems like avocados. This work fits the photo mosaic theme very well because it takes pictures of all kinds of things, and puts them together to form one of the most beloved works of all time. All in all, this work is a very good representation of what photo mosaics are and I believe that I was very bold for the artist to replicate such an iconic artwork in the mosaic style.
For the second image, I have chosen another photo mosaic of Spider-Man (Image 2). I am a huge Marvel fan, which is one of the reasons that I am a big fan of this peace specifically, but another reason I like it is because is has pictures of a lot of the other Marvel characters in it. In the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) there are many different characters, and the fact that they took pictures from them and made it into a photo mosaic of Spider-Man is almost serial. It’s a hard thing to explain, but seeing a picture of one of the newest members of the MCU made up of the older characters is just crazy to see for a fan of these characters. This work in almost the exact opposite of the Mona Lisa one because unlike the Mona Lisa photo-mosaic, this peace uses pictures that relate to the final image. In the Mona Lisa, having random things create a beautiful image is crazy because they don’t have anything to do with the overall image, but in this one they used things that, while they may not look like Spider-Man, they still relate to him in some way. It’s almost poetic that this image of Spider-Man is made up of the very things that make Spider-Man who he is. If other people are not Marvel fans then they may not have the same view of the work as I do, but either way it is a good artwork and a great example of a photo mosaic.
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The third image is not a photo mosaic, but a normal mosaic artwork that is three-dimensional. In this artwork of a fox (Image 3), the artist takes many different shapes of varying colors and puts them together to form the image. While mosaic and photo mosaic have many similarities, one of the things that makes them different is that in photo-mosaic you can take away all but one sub image, and there is still a picture there, but in mosaic you cant really tell what it is unless you have the entire thing. This is especially true for the artwork of the fox because each shape that makes up the fox is almost abstract in itself. You can take any part of the fox, its tail, body, even its head, and if you put it on its own you most likely won’t be able to tell that it is a fox. One of the great things about mosaic artwork is that if you take any one part of the work, it could be considered it’s own abstract peace. However, putting all of these peaces together creates an image that is not abstract and we are able to tell exactly what it is. This is an example of the odd and even number system I stated in the introduction. Here in the fox, the pieces that make up the artwork are abstract (odd). But when you take an odd number and add it to itself you get an even number, or in the artworks case, a non-abstract image of a fox. This is fascinating because putting things that don’t make anything into a final image is one of the main things that mosaic artworks do. That is why this fox fits so well, it takes the essence of any other mosaic artwork, but makes it three-dimensional.
The next image I chose was another photo-mosaic artwork of a woman (Image 4). This photo is similar to the one of the Mona Lisa because it uses pictures of things that are not similar to each other or even the main picture of the woman. One thing though that is different from the Mona Lisa one is because this image uses lighter colors. When using darker images in a photo-mosaic it is easy for our eyes to put the images together because it is harder to distinguish them apart. In this image however, the artist uses lighter images. The use of these lighter images makes it easier for the viewer to actually tell that the work is a photo-mosaic because they can distinguish between each of the smaller individual photos. Although you can do this, it still looks like the woman when you look at the photo as a whole. The artwork also looks more chaotic because of all the bright colors. Being able to distinguish exactly where all of the individual images are within the work makes it harder for your eyes to focus on the image as a whole. However, the fact that all the colors are brighter makes it work in a way. If some colors were light and others dark them it would take so much off the artwork that our eyes couldn’t make out the bigger image. The fact that all of the smaller images are brighter works for this example of photo-mosaic because we are still able to tell that the main image is of a woman. This artwork shows that photo-mosaic works can be done with darker individual images as well as lighter ones. You may think that lighter images wouldn’t work as well for photo-mosaic because it is easier to tell where the individual photos within the work, making it less obvious for what the bigger image is. However, that is what makes this artwork so great. You can tell where all of the smaller images but your brain can still put together the image as a whole and turn it into the woman. This work of the woman shows that you can in fact make photo-mosaic artworks out of lighter individual images and still be able to make out what the bigger image is and it can still be a good photo-mosaic. Again, this work follows the theme because it is an example of one of the many ways you can make a mosaic artwork and it still works out.
The last artwork I chose was an artwork of girl in front of a blue background (Image 5). This is a normal mosaic image because it is made up of a bunch of different shapes and colors rather than smaller images. This image is a great mosaic peace because while it is still a mosaic artwork, it is different than most of the other mosaic artworks out there. This is because most of the normal mosaic artworks out there are like the ones that you see on big windows at churches. These mosaic works are shiny and almost metallic, but in this artwork the colors are duller. Not that they are less bright, but they are not the same tent as the normal mosaic artworks out there. This is why I chose most of the works I did, because they defy the norms just a little bit. Not enough to where you can barley tell what kind of art it is, but enough to where you may say, “I don’t see that kind of mosaic work everywhere.” This artwork of the girl is another great example of this. It is an artwork that, like the fox, seem to be three-dimensional unlike normal mosaic artworks. All of the smaller individual pieces seem to be more organized than the fox, and looking at little individual pieces of the girls face actually reveals her face. That is why I like this artwork so much and why it fits into the mosaic category so well. It is a more realistic peace of art than many other mosaic works out there. They all seem to be realistic for the most part, but the one of the girl is one of the most realistic mosaic artworks I’ve seen.
All in all, I have choses these specific artworks for different reasons. The one of the Mona Lisa because it was bold, turning one of the most famous artworks into a photo-mosaic. I chose the Spider-Man work because, while it may mean more to me personally, It is fascinating that it is made up of all the things and all the people who make Spider-Man what he is today. The fox because of how abstract each of the smaller portions of the painting are and the fact that it is a three-dimensional object. I chose the woman because, while many mosaic artworks are made of bright color, we don’t usually see that in photo-mosaic and it shows that you do not have to stick to a specific color pallet when making those types of artworks. Finally, I chose the mosaic artwork of the girl because of how realistic it is and that mosaic and photo-mosaic artworks don’t usually have as much detail as that one. All of these artworks are great examples of mosaic and photo-mosaic works in their own way, and I’m sure that anyone can find something special in any mosaic/photo-mosaic art works. That is one of the reasons that art is so beautiful, there are many different themes and many different artworks in those themes. If you look hard enough, whether it be in a mosaic artwork or not, anyone can find a work that seems to speak to them. To me though, mosaic and photo-mosaic art is something that I have a personal connection to. I am not one that would hand art up on my wall, but I would be happy to hang any one of these five mosaic artworks up somewhere that I would see them every day.
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