Picture interpretation

Gueswende yerbanga

LEH 355 H02W 50910

Assignment DUE 2/15 Picture interpretation

 

The picture that I choose is called “"The Eclipse of the Sun".  The author name is George Grosz. He was born in Germany in 1893. Grosz began his studying by attending a weekly drawing class. Later, to develop his skills, he stated drawing drinking and battle scenes. He also studied at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. And Berlin College of Arts and Crafts. In November 1914 Grosz volunteered for military service and was given a discharge after hospitalization for sinusitis in 1915. Around 1920s, his rename was widespread in Berlin because was his caricature of drawings Berlin was perfect and nice. He became a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic before he immigrated to the United States in 1933 with his family. Grosz became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1938, and settle down his residence at Bayside, New York. He taught at the Art Students League intermittently until 1955. After, he to return to Berlin, where he died on July 6, 1959 from falling down a flight of stairs after a night of drinking.

“"The Eclipse of the Sun" was realized in 1926.

I choose this painting because it was realized in Germany and it is an Oil on canvas painting with dimension 81-5/8 x 71-7/8 in and it is related to our topic in class: Nihilism. George Grosz was a team of the new objectivity: he wants by objectivity to be honest and realist: display things "as they really are" instead of displaying them the way you want. This painting is full of symbols and can be interpret different ways.

According to me, Eclipse of the Sun design a world where power and greed are above everything. People have tendency to do some bad thing to move on. On the picture, we can see the sun who symbolized life with a dollar sign that symbolize money. Money because of greed: the desire to be wealthy, prosperous and be known everywhere. We saw also on this painting in the back of the table, two men, one wear like a leader uniform is sit down and the other one is whispering in his ear. The one with the uniform seem to be a boss and the one whispering a maid or bodyguard who has to follow his boss instruction to get compensated monthly by money. Around the table, there are other men which I think some of them are good and some of them no. The blind donkey on the table is synonym of ignorance: people because of money or sometimes because they do not have a choice follow their leader blindly even the leader is in a wrong track and they know it. The sword with blood on the table means submission: if you do not respect the leader order, you will paid the inconvenient. On the bottom right hand of the painting, we can see someone imprisoned to say that weak sometimes people can be trapped by rich people if they do not follow their orders.

In conclusion, George Grosz design the Eclipse of the Sun to develop the theme of greed, inequality, power and corruption.