Analysis of a painting by George Benjamin Luks

George Luks was one of two sons of a doctor.

He was born in Pennsylvannia in 1867. Luks was a painter who had a lack of sentimentality and was part of a group with such attributes, they inspired realism in the twentieth century. George studied under Thomas Arshutz at the Pennsylvannia Academy of the fine arts. But then continued his education in Europe, studing in cities such as Dusseldorf, Paris and London. Luks was part of a famous group also called the famous eight, they were very influential and founded the Ashcan school.

He developd a s a painter moving from drawing comic strips for the Philadelphia Press to receiving a job offer as a cartonist in New York, to finally getting his painting career moving. His works are famous for their ability to capture the essence of a moment. The Famous eight went on to showcase their works at a exhibit at Macbeth Gallery found in New york. Their works were stepping stones to change, such as the way human figures were drawn.Luks went on to teach at the Art students League as well as founding his own school.

Luks was a heavy drinker and this resulted to his death. George Luks was found dead in the early hours of the morning after his involvement in a Bar room brawl.AnalysisThe mood of this painting is fierce and this is seen or described by the artists combination of colors. The amount of anger shown through the two wrestlers in painting is more described by the facial expressions they are showning.

Both wrestlers are bruced, the painting seems to capture a moment towards the conclusion of the fight as both wrestlers seem to be worn out. One of the wrestlers has the upperhand in this situation. The other wrestlers seems more in a state in which he has lost his moral and has given up the fight. His facial expression shows an image of sympathy. Its like his looking straight at the viewer asking for help.

One of the wrestlers has the other on a grip position so the opponent is stuck. The grip includes two main holds, the first is a grip holding down the opponents right hand and the other a grip using his legs which is keeping the opponents body in place. The background is dark with the spotlight being forced towards the wrestlers. The wrestlers are both muscular and well built. The wrestler that seems to be winning has a bloody nose and eye, which makes a statement that must have been inflicted with a strong hit to the head. The painting is rather active and lively in a dangerous, action based way.

The use of color makes the wrestlers sweat and blood pop out and as well makes them look worn out and tired.The artist was releasing most of his works towards the twentiet century and he was one of the artists who influenced modern art or twentieth century art. His use of detail and color to make the painting come alive influenced how the human bodies were drawn in the twentieth century. During the end of the nineth century artists were being influenced towards realism. This was mostly focused towards painting what was infront of the painter without thinking about the past or future.

The feeling of the painting is more towards intensity. The intense feeling, the lively state makes the painting pop-up. The emotion in the painting is anger and this not really that hard to spot. The anger is due to the type of sport, wrestling is a contact sport and there is always an emotional impact when you are trying to beat up each other. Hate is also observed because the stage of the fight the painter used to inspire his painting, is during a moment where one of thr wrestlers is in a rage which his acting on towards his opponent. The positioning of the painting is rather full of rage and hate which one of the wrestlers is showing towards the other.

The grip one of the wrestlers has on the other describes more the emotion hate and anger.The sport being played and the situation of the sport describes that the time period when this painting was based on, wrestling was still being introduced as a major sport. This is because the rules in which the sport is being played is primitive. The uniforms which players used during the 20th century and today include full body covering except for the lower part of the leg. As well as head gear to protect the wrestler, items which neither wrestler in this painting show.

This shows that the painting was based before the 1900s.The painter used hard strokes when painting this image as this can be seen in the background. As individual strokes are left behind, this might have been a techniques to draw attention toward the middle or state the mood. The use of gradation is very well done in his painting as it helps show the muscles being strained and as well the bruced parts of the wrestlers bodies. Another important technique used was the shadow as it helps in showing that the scene of this fight was in a arena as the source of light was from overhead.

These lights can be a spot ligh or marely a stage light, but in either cases it was in doors as the walls are dark. And this shows something is blocking the light from escaping, however low the light is in terms of shine.The color creates a serious mood or death like tone to the image. This makes the image seem more lively in terms of the action is easy to feel and see.

The use of a variety of colors is low and this as well makes the painting seem more emo or dark. The color mixtures used in the skin tones is so as to bring depth to the wrestlers muscles and show exactly which parts of their bodies they are straining or using. The skin tone color also helped to show which parts of their bodies were bruced from the fight.This painting is full of action and the tone of the painting is what paintings should be about. The painter recreated a moment which is highly sofiscated to replicate because he has to define the correct mood with the use of color and he succeeded in doing so. In the end the painting represented the situation in signifcant way, without changing the meaning or what it was supposed to demonstrate in the first place.

That was my main reason for choosing this painting, it demonstrates high levels of detail and sends a message through its use of color and gradation.