Simularities and Differences Between Vermeer and Cotton

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Jan Vermeer had an aim of painting realist portraits, genre pieces and two city landscapes. He worked in the style of baroque and rococo which was during c.1580- c.1750. He always painted the life of Dutch society in the 17th century. He painted the wealthy in luxurious homes to the simple milk maid which was his aim to let people see what life was like for each type of class. Will Cotton’s aim is of painting landscapes and portraits full of sweet and luscious candy with humans as the subjects. He is currently working in the style of post impressionism but he has his own twist to the style he paints. To do this he opened up a pop-up French bakery at Partners & Spade in Manhattan, New York. He uses the baked goods for reference in his paintings and even in 2009 over three weekends he sold them to the public and let them experience the process that he takes when painting while surrounded by the freshly baked sweets. As seen in the painting ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’ the background was actually a hard and dark translucent glossy green, but over time has changed. Having a dark background was thought to bring out the three dimensional effect of the figure painted. The tone of the dark green translucent background was to be more vibrant against the flesh coloured skin. In the portrait there are two tones of blue, light and dark, which show the folds and tucks of the young girl’s turban that she is wearing. There is no line to define the left side of the young girl’s nose, and the right hand side of her nose and nostril are lost in shadow and the same colour as her cheek. Camera obscura is believed to be used to reduce the tone of light and dark to get the effect that he has gotten.

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