Fire

The work of Clemente is very interesting to me, because he gives a different insight and completely different perception on portraiture and how it is viewed. When many people think of portraiture they think of the traditional sketched portrait created with pencil - with traditional shading, etc. In this case and in this portrait, the face is simplified, and the face is almost abstract in a way. The feature of the face are distorted and emphasized in certain aspects. For example, the lips are huge, and the eyes are disfigured, and rounded out. The nose is also slightly big, and the face rounded more, compared to a "normal" or "traditional" face. I also admire the color usage in this piece, and how certain areas contrast with each other well. (the red in the shirt, lips, eyes, and background contrast well with each other. The coloration and shades of the face of the figure are realistic in a sense, yet the rest of the piece itself is very abstract and distorted. The figure is very flat and two-dimensional, which intensifies the meaning being conveyed. The color usage is very significant to the piece itself and the title. When I think of fire, I think of red and oranges hues - which helps convey the point that Clemente is trying to get across. The red within the eyes to me indicates that the subject sees anger and hatred, and to this individual (could be Clemente

Image derived from: Clemente, Francesco. Fire. 1982. Painting. Artchive, Thomas Ammann, Zurich. Web. 1 Nov 2013. <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/clemente/clemente_fire.jpg.html>.