Critique 1

This Courbet painting is overall a horizontal composition, due to the general shape of the outline, however it also seems to have some vertical elements, such as all the people standing, and the cross that's being held on a pole. These people with the strongly vertical composition contrast against the sky, with the long horizontal composition and clouds. The crowd in this picture seems to be gathering around some sort of pit or grave in the ground, and to the left of the pit are the more important looking people, and to the right and center are all the people dressed in black observing whats taking place. The people to the left are in red or white clothing, which contributes to a slightly asymmetrical composition.

The left of the picture feels like the more important side, not only because of the colors of clothing the people there are wearing, but also the cross is on that side. The painter might have intended the cross to be one of the main focal points of the picture, since the skyline there is larger than it is anywhere else in the painting. However, my eye was immediately drawn to the white cloth object with the "X" looking symbol on it. Also, I think the painter might have used the red clothing on the two men near the center as a dividing point for the picture, since the people to the right are all in black, and they seem to be separated by the red color on the two men from the more religious and important looking figures to the left. However, he balances the paining by having the light part of the sky behind all the dark figures, and the darker part of the sky behind the light figures.

At first I thought this painting looked a little jumbled, and slightly confusing due to all the people, but then I examined it more closely and identified some of the compositional elements, such as some of the focal points, and I then found it to be far more clear, and that I did actually like it. I also liked that the artist used mainly muted subtle colors, instead of overly bright and bold ones. Overall, I found it to be a nicely composed and well thought out piece, but still not a very emotionally expressive one.