"The Massacre of the Innocents"

It was a wonderful journey to go over Metropolitan Art of Museum, I found many genius and fantastic artworks, especially the one called oil painting by Francois-Joseph Navez which was made during 1787-1869. It was a master piece, which touching me when i saw it. Francois-Joseph Navez was a Belgain student of Jacques-Louis David who has created "The Oath of the Horatii" painting. In painting of "The Massacre of the Innocents," I seem can tell the style of Navez is fusing David's naturalism and idealization of figures forms. The painting is telling the story of a family preventing for Massacre. And each characters have been shown in different ways: the lady in the middle putting her hands over her head, and gaze at the ground with helpless and sadness. She makes me feel like she is tired to escape, and has no choice for her life and her family life. She is holding over the little girl, who is lying over her hand and look upward with half-closed eyes, and her mouth is half-opened, which seems she is breathing, and there is blood comes out from her breast. The another ladies which from left side, she is trying to take care of the little girl, and her face is showing worries. The last lady from right side, she is covering the baby mouth in order to stop sounds. And she is looking outside with her scary face. The baby which she holding is showing the struggles faces, which give me a feeing of pity and sadness. The artist used the light on central figures to take viewer's attention, and then leading viewers to the right hand side (woman and baby) and back to the scene of Massacre (a man is killing people) by following the lady's eyes. I really like the way the artist portrayed with baby's expression, the baby gives me more feeling of "innocent", even though his scale is kinda wried to compare with other figures, because he has a bigger head than other figures, which doesn't look real. But overall piece of work is pretty nice and emotional. In Navez's painting, he has adopted the techniques of his teacher used in "The Oath of the horatii": highlights and shadows, they like to covered by shadows which highlights the foreground of the family situations, and apply dark color on the background. And the composition for both painting are divided into two areas, either opposite sides or front-back. The both painting are seem to talk about sacrifice and innocents: in David's painting, the father and his sons are sacrifice for the city's sake, and in Navez's painting, the family are sacrifice as well. Both of painting are neoclassical style, which are doing with dramatic lighting, perfection forms, and gestural clarity which are emphasized.

Also, there is another two artworks I prefer to talk about are "Jerusalem from the Environs" by Charles-Theodore Frere in 1814-1888 and "Prayer in the Mosque" by Jean-Leon Gerome in 1871. The "Jerusalem from the Environs" is a scene of French Countryside, and it represents the style of Meticulous. The Meticulous style requires great care and grace. I like this piece work because the space which artist represented is very well, the distance from men to the countryside is very unique and real. When I look at this work, I feel like I am involved in it, and I am part of their group, surveying the countryside which is very far and far away, and waiting to get home. The "Prayer in the Mosque" is very surprise me. The painting looks very fantastic because the depth distance he created, and there is no end of distance, and it seems go further and further. Both of artworks are very static look, but they have pure feeling for nature, and excelled in atmospheric perspective technique.


By JingQianLiu