Observation at its Finest
Artistic Vision
Author: Zara Vayman
Observation at its Finest
Artistic Vision
This beautiful painting was created by Fernand Pelez (French, 1848-1913. It’s called Grimaces and Misery- The Saltimbanques, 1888. The painting is oil on canvas and in five panels. It’s based on a circus scene. The studium of this painting are five unhappy children, two parrots, one monkey , a dwarf, two clowns, and the French Orchestra. The facial expressions is what i found really interesting. The unsmiling young acrobats, how one of them has her arms crossed and eyes rolled up and one of the men on the very right has a very lost looking facial expression. If you look very closely to the bottom right corner you’ll notice that Pelez didn’t finish the shoes on the last man nor the floor boards. I purposely took this photo with the silhouettes of the people sitting on the bench observing it, because it gives you a sense of dimension of the photo.
