Image Essay # 2

Dominance. To me dominance is something that catches your eye right away, or something that looks like it is going to jump out of the paper. In this picture it is very obvious that the red leaves on the tree are the dominant object. These red leaves are dominant because of the value of the color red. The value is very bright and bold and attracts your eye to the top left corner on the painting. In our projects in class we were to have at least on dominant object. In our very first assignment we had to juxtapose a circle, line and rectangle and have one of those objects be dominant over the other. For most of us our dominant object was the rectangle because it was easy for us to work around. We also needed other subordinate shapes to move our eye around the page. In this particular painting the red may be the most dominant color but it is not the most dominant space. I think this was very creative because behind the red tree is a "negative" space if you will that is made of muted colors and beige. I also liked how the artist put green leaves under the red leaves because red and green on complimentary colors, and this helps the red pop out even more. Even though the red color is so dominant your eye still moves around the page. The artist created a path that makes its way to the back of the painting and then it turns the corner. I like this because it directs your eye away from the more dominant object but still gives focus to the painting.