A Student by Colt Wolff

A student (1930) Felice Casorati

One of the interesting things about this painting is that the person in the painting is looking at the people looking at the painting. I find this intriguing because this person looking at you is holding a paint palette so it feels as if you are the painting. The image is looking slightly to his right which makes you wonder exactly what he is looking at or looking for. It is a very strange perceptive having a painting look at you when you are supposed to be looking at it.

As you look at this painting, most people normally just stand in the center of the frame and analyze the image. With this particular work the fact that his eyes aren’t facing directly at you makes you want to meet his glance. So personally I moved to the left trying to figure out exactly why he was looking in that direction. There isn’t much hidden in this painting. The room the student is sitting in is very open and bare. The only place you really can’t tell if something could be lurking there is in the shadows behind the cracked doors. I don’t feel like these doors really have anything to do with the image other then giving the background depth and providing the idea that he is sitting in some sort of apartment or home with not much in it. So there for I don’t personally feel that anything is “hiding” in this image.

I feel that the artist may have been painting a self-portrait in a sense with this work. Although I am unfamiliar with what this artist actually looks like. It would make sense to me if he was trying to show himself at work and give the viewer an inside look at an artist at work. He may have also been just trying to be clever and flip the whole art viewing scenario around. Instead of the people just viewing a piece of art, this image implies that they are the art and the artist is working on them.

The image isn’t cartoonish but it is far from being photo realistic.

You can definitely tell that it has been painted. I find it interesting that the way his right hand is sitting gin the image would be quite uncomfortable for any real person. It has a very strange angle at the wrist. I like the fact that this painting wasn’t done with realism. Since it is not super realistic it allows the viewer to pay less attention to the image and more attention to the meaning of it as well as what is really going on. I know that if it would have been this beautifully realistic work I personally would have a harder time getting past that and may not have noticed the idea behind the painting.