The Running Flower by Fernand Leger made in 1952 is an amazing piece of artwork. It is currently at the Kimball art museum in Fort Worth. It travels from different places but is on loan from the Burnett Foundation, to the museum during it's renaissance and love exhibits. The Running Flower is made up of implied lines that create the petals and the center of the flower to show the middle hole missing with in the blue color. It is a volumetric design that is three dimensional. The lines are used to show the area that would represents the petals. The lines show the movement of the Running Flower with the different straight and curved lines, and the different widths of the sides and different lengths and depths. The flower is made as organic, it is drawn from nature. It's placement being outside and the different shapes and sizes of the petals makes it more like nature and that it's not perfect sizing makes it feel less perfect.
It fills the space in a large area, placed outside in it's own environment, the sculpture is larger than a flower is and stands taller than the average adult human. The sculpture interacts with the light in it's setting by pulling the colors from the environment surrounding it. There are many different types of flowers and trees that have the same colors which make the sculpture stand out bright and bold. The different gradations of the colors create depth with in the sculpture. The colors being in the front so the movement, but with the black on some petals helps to show that they are in the back and farther away, the eye seems to avoid the black but at the same time it shows the different dimensions of the flower and portrays movement.
The different color intensities in this sculpture are bright and bold. The hues that the artist used when painting this sculpture make the eye focus on the middle of the flower and the top and bottom with the brightness of the orange and blue colors that stand out.
The natural feeling people receive from flowers is fun and light, kind of joyful. The colors used by the artist still portray the same feelings when looking at the sculpture. The colors are ones that could be found in real life on flowers so the flow isn't interrupted at all. With the use of complimentary colors the flow is actually very coherent. The red with the green and than the blue with the orange, makes the feeling more natural and life like, with the artist use of warms colors. The over all texture of the sculpture is smooth, it is rounded in area's and sharp in others but the patterns made in this form make the appearance more substantial. The balance that is the "Running Flower" is asymmetrical, like stated earlier the eye is drawn to the middle of the sculpture with the eye going down the bright orange and meeting in the middle of the medium.
Fernand Legar, had to have some difficulties when creating this piece with jsut the shear size or the art work. The ceramic is a fairly easy medium to work with but with the piecing together of the different areas, he was bond to come across some problems. However, the medium is strong and solid and seems to have a great durability. The initial piece was all painted white and than later painted over with the colors. The paint is shiny and kind of has a glossy look to it. From pictures of the past to when I saw it the other day it didn't seem to have changed much at all. The art work is beautiful and had to require a mixture both of strength and patience, because the detail and the many attempts that it would have taken to figure out what it would have taken for the medium to stand in the round and not have a base to support it with all that weight on top. The strength part is being able to piece all the different sections together after the carving of the ceramic. I think that it was a little of both process that were used in making this sculpture, subtractive and additive. For the subtractive part it would the carving of the petals and making the different shapes, and for the additive part it would be piecing the different parts together to make the big picture.
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