Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue

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Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue Georgia O'Keeffe “Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue” is a modern art picture painted by Georgia O'Keeffe in 1931 (1887–1986). The size of the painting is H. 39-7/8, W. 35-7/8 inches. The name of the painting simply reflects the content of it: a cow’s skull placed on the top-center covering two-thirds of the canvas. Two red vertical stripes are depicted on the left and on the right of the painting and two drapes painted of white and blue are placed adjacent to the red ones and divided by a narrow black area in the center. The painting is quite simple and even the skull is deprived of some of the complexity of it thus looking almost stylized. The placement of the skull at the top with the large horns taking almost all the top size of the painting together with the placement of the black empty area in the center clearly forms the shape of a cross. The painting is very simple, with a clear and well defined trait defining the shape of the skull and the color areas. The skull is perfectly centered and is portrayed with the left side of it almost perfectly mirroring ¾ of the right side. Colors are strongly separated and very limited in numbers: white, red, blue, black. There is a strong contrast of light and dark in the area of the skull that goes from the eyes to the mouth, but, once again, it is depicted with a strong separation of the different areas. The placement of red vertical bars on the side and the white-blues drapes on the back of the skull gives a sense of total abstraction and suspension of form and lines. In my opinion there are two different “souls” that coexist in this beautiful painting”: a call to mysticism and a strong nationalism tied into a painting that seems to suggest a strong connection between America and religion. The skull removed from its natural environment, placed in a suspended state in the

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