Historical Art and A Modern Take

 

In our zoom class, in groups we discussed the elements and principles of this piece by David Lachappel titled: Jesus is my Homeboy. We identified the use of balance between the people, the colours used and the use of a centre point to draw focus to Jesus. This piece is a recreation of the late 15th- century mural painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci but instead for a piece of historical research I wanted to compare it with this piece that I think uses the principle of balance extremely well.

The Delivery of Keys to St. Peter By Pierrot Perugino

The Delivery of Keys to St. Peter is a fresco painting created during the Italian Art Renaissance era in 1481. A Fresco painting is a mural using watercolour that’s dried and set with the plaster to become a permanent part of the wall. 

What I found interesting about this piece is the use of composition to aid the telling of the story. At first glance the viewer sees a crowd of people in the foreground, this is very well balanced on both sides of the two figures interacting with one- another: Jesus and Peter. There is not a direct balance in numbers but the equal surface area and crowds of people in the middle ground allows the viewer to recognise Jesus and Peter as the focal point of the painting without using scale to highlight their importance.

As the viewers' eyes move to the top of the fresco, we get the feeling that we are looking further in depth, this is due to the scale of proportions between the people and structures and the use of repetition with the three buildings. 

To conclude, Perugino uses the technique of the vanishing point as a tool for the proportion and scaling of objects and figures and his use of foreground and background, equal surface area and equally weighted objects help the art become more stable and balanced.