His whole body is wrapped up in a piece of gray plaid shawl with only his hands exposed?left hand softly resting on his right. In this essay, Will show you how Legal successfully built this tranquil scene of death through his careful manipulation of colors, texture and composition in the painting, so that viewers do not feel depressed when standing in front of it. The color tone of this painting is generally cool and muted. Legal paints the background with large pieces of pale blue and green, which occupy almost half of his work, and the beddings are uniformly white; even the plaid shawl covering on
Magazine’s body is cool gray. Generally speaking, cool colors tend to have a calming and comforting effect upon people. Since this painting is addressing to death, it is reasonable that it might evoke some negative feelings, which against Legal’s purpose of creating a peaceful death scene, so he ingeniously utilizes the visual comfort that cool hue generates to neutralize and balance the sad feelings that are associated with the topic of the painting.
This is one reason that this work looks so tranquil and the viewers do not feel depressed in front of it; even it is a work with such heavy theme. Yet it is also very interesting that Legal does use some warm colors on this painting?Manikin’s crimson sleeve. Is Legal breaking the balance here? Well, we can interpret it metaphorically. As the name of the painting The Dying Amazing suggests, Amazing, in this painting, is not yet dead.
In order to show a dying Amazing instead of a dead Amazing, Legal, uses the gray shawl and the black sweater to subtly imply the shadow of death enveloping Amazing, and Magazine’s uncovered deep red sleeve, on the other hand, suggests the very little time he remains in the world. In this way, the contrast between arm and cool colors not only gives the painting some lively variation, but also perfectly illustrates the process of Magazine’s death. Besides the effective use tot colors, Legal is also good at utilizing texture to achieve the exact feelings he wants to instill in viewers.
In this painting, fabrics occupy nearly halt entire composition. Amazing is propped up on vivo noticeable white pillows, his upper body is wrapped up in his plaid shawl and his legs are covered by the sheet. Legal attaches great importance to the texture of the fabrics in order to stress their soft and thick characteristics. Viewers typically would respond to this with vary and comfortable feelings, which are opposite to the general feelings of death, a subject people always associate with chill and pain.
Moreover, since the textures of the pillows and sheet in this painting are so real and tangible that viewers could easily muddle Magazine’s death with sleeping if they do not read the title first. Although death is a detestable topic, sleeping is always an enjoyable thing to everyone, so by emphasizing the texture Of fabrics to create an “ambiguous” scene, which may imply death can be as natural and Rene as sleeping, Legal, successfully reduces the negative feelings that the painting may impact on viewers.
Furthermore, the composition of this painting is quite simple yet well- considered. Rather than use exaggerated depictions like dramatic lights or theatrical gestures to strengthen the visual impact of Magazine’s death, Legal just sets up a simple bedroom setting, a blank background and a naturally positioned Amazing figure. It’s worth mentioning that Magazine’s hands are carefully arranged in a very relaxed way. Hand gestures are often a reliable indicator tot one’s mood. For example, angry and painful people would like to clench their fists; neo. Oho and threatened people would like to tremble their hands. In this painting, Magazine’s hands are very relaxed?one hand gently overlaps on the other, a tiny gesture showing that Amazing is not suffering from his death at all. He is more like a man who has composedly accepted his destiny, quietly waiting for the arrival of his final moment. To him, death is not painful. Overall, The Dying Amazing is such an outstanding work that really captures the peace and tranquility of Manikin’s death.
