critique 1

 Often things that are used up and have nothing left are called dead. Usually when you throw something in the trash it is dead, has no more use, isn’t functional an, is gone forever. The word death makes people think of the end, everything gone, whether you are taking about lettuce being dead or a human that is actually dead. When people think of someone being dead often they think of them as being gone forever and that dying is completely leaving this word. Is the painting “Lane of Poplars at Sunset”, Vincent Van Gogh uses the barren trees, lack of detail, and the view of the figures to depict the idea that with death everything either leaves or ends.

            Healthy and live trees are usually depicted as being full and colorful. Healthy trees can often represent life and growing. The trees in “Lane of Poplars at Sunset” are very thin and barren, they look lifelike but not necessarily alive. Once trees are dead, once they stop growing they start to rot and eventually decompose. Once people die, in theory their memory starts to fade, starts to leave and once a memory is gone you cant just get it back, and you cant just relive it. In “Lane of Poplars at sunset” the tree’s lack of life is an example of memories of someone leaving, decomposing, till eventually that person is forever gone.

            Paintings that are full of detail often look more alive and vibrant. The viewer is distracted by the intricate detail which almost makes the painting look like a photograph. This distraction makes the viewer focus less on the subject of the painting. Vincent Van Gogh used less detail to keep the viewer more focused on the subject of the painting because the nature of the subject makes people want to ignore it. Death and lose are things that are greatly ignored because people don’t want to face them, the lack of detail is used to make obvious that once someone dies they really are gone.

             In literature and art there is often the character of “death”. “Death” is usually presented as a figure in a black cloak that seems faceless. Also, sometimes “death” is carrying a body in his arms, or the soul he has just taken away. The cloaked figure in “Lane of Poplars at Sunset” appears as a black outline giving him an eerie feeling. It appears that he is carrying a body away, walking into the sunset and the end of the day. The black outline of the figure is used to make him seem more ominous, and the way he is carrying a body walking away towards the end of the day gives a sense of departure. All the aspects of the figure combine to make him appear as death walking away with someone’s life, representing how once someone is death everything about them starts to walk away till they are gone.

            In general death is something people try to ignore, espashally when it is that after death everything is gone. Vincent Van Gogh used a lot of diffent aspects in “Lane of Poplars at Sunset” to emphisize its subject since it is something that people often want to ignore. He used the baren dead trees to represent memories of someone decaying and the lack of detail to make the veiwer think more about the subject of the painting. Also, he used the figure to depict the character of “death” walking away with someones life. Death and lose are things that are inevitable, and Vincent Van Gogh used “Lane of Poplars at Sunset” to show that once something dies everything about it either leaves or ends.