Formal Analysis of Elizabeth Murray’s “Back on Earth”.
Elizabeth Murray, an American artist, is well known for her use of bright colors and oddly shaped canvases. In her abstract painting “Back on Earth” dated 1981, Murray used oil paint as her medium; her support was 2 irregularly shaped canvases that were fit together for an overall painting. The dimensions of the painting are 120.5 inches by 135 inches.
The first thing that one notices when looking at “Back on Earth” is the actual shape of the canvases. Elizabeth Murray managed to balance out two opposites – a blue canvas that is purely geometric and has strong sharp edges, with the green canvas that has an organic, biomorphic shape with softer, curved edges. Surprisingly, the shapes do not “fight”, but rather compliment and complete each other. Murray’s choice of the odd shape for the canvases adds interest to her work and makes it unique.
The use of shapes and lines in the painting itself is quite interesting and unique as well. Soft, fluid lines of light green amorphous shape on the green canvas are opposed by the angular shape and assertive lines in the leftmost upper part of the blue canvas. Murray also balances out this straight almost rectangular shape by using curved line to create an oval shape that joins the rectangle making it look like a leg of a table. In fact, the focal point of the composition, the black oval shape in the center of blue canvas with tentacle-like extensions looks like a stylized table itself. This black shape links blue and green canvas, adjoining them, ties the entire work together by flowing from one canvas to the other, and creates a sense of overall unity in the composition.
When it comes to the color, many artists avoid using bright colors in fear of making a painting too overwhelming, but Elizabeth Murray shows that bright colors, if chosen well, may actually supplement each other. In “Back on Earth” she uses analogous colors – green, blue-green and blue to achieve unity through color. What helps to bring the work
The first thing that one notices when looking at “Back on Earth” is the actual shape of the canvases. Elizabeth Murray managed to balance out two opposites – a blue canvas that is purely geometric and has strong sharp edges, with the green canvas that has an organic, biomorphic shape with softer, curved edges. Surprisingly, the shapes do not “fight”, but rather compliment and complete each other. Murray’s choice of the odd shape for the canvases adds interest to her work and makes it unique.
The use of shapes and lines in the painting itself is quite interesting and unique as well. Soft, fluid lines of light green amorphous shape on the green canvas are opposed by the angular shape and assertive lines in the leftmost upper part of the blue canvas. Murray also balances out this straight almost rectangular shape by using curved line to create an oval shape that joins the rectangle making it look like a leg of a table. In fact, the focal point of the composition, the black oval shape in the center of blue canvas with tentacle-like extensions looks like a stylized table itself. This black shape links blue and green canvas, adjoining them, ties the entire work together by flowing from one canvas to the other, and creates a sense of overall unity in the composition.
When it comes to the color, many artists avoid using bright colors in fear of making a painting too overwhelming, but Elizabeth Murray shows that bright colors, if chosen well, may actually supplement each other. In “Back on Earth” she uses analogous colors – green, blue-green and blue to achieve unity through color. What helps to bring the work