Best and Worst Works of Art. Visual & Performing Arts Coursework

Best and Worst Works of Art
1. Best Work of Art
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This photograph – Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, No. 10.12, p. 157 – is one best work of art. In black and white, Migrant Mother emphasizes mass at a considerable expense of space. Filled up by mother’s figure, Migrant Mother, huddled by a couple of kids on right and left, faces not shown, lines – of mother’s face, hair, and dress – are lent a special emphasis perhaps to accentuate a certain state of affairs. The Migrant Mother is, more specifically, shown front and center in a photograph barely offering much space except for a headroom, bare and empty. The kids, leaning on mother’s right and left shoulders, make space more compacted by filling in all area between each kid’s head and mother’s shoulder. This corporeal compactness is, moreover, paralleled by a state of mental compactness, so to speak, expressed in “hard” lines shown on mother’s face, particularly on forehead. The eyebrows frowning and lips dry, mother’s face is rich in texture made even more striking by capturing light (on mother’s face, right hand and elbow) against darker shades all over mother’s neck, cheeks and, of course, hair. The juxtaposition of light and dark as shown in mother’s figure is further accentuated by a playful capture of moods expressed in a contrast between son’s lighter nape (to left) and daughter’s darker neck (to right). The light-dark shade manipulation is, moreover, well captured in
background as a darker headroom over son’s head is juxtaposed to a lighter headroom over daughter’s head. Overall, Migrant Mother is, in a sense, a masterful e...