Visual Storytelling

Contemporary artists often use their works to tell a story. The different artists use different techniques and imagery to tell their unique stories. The first video explores James Kerry Marshall who is an African American man who only draws very dark skinned African Americans. He uses contrast to bring out the subject of the painting and tell the African American story. The next video I watched was on Nijdeka Akunyili Crosby who is from Haiti and her paintings all have a focus on her Hatian heritage. Haiti was a British colony and so her paintings often picture her and her texan husband to show her heritage. She often depicts ceremonies from her culture like in her painting "Wedding Portrait" below. She shows her culture's wedding tradition but instead of a Haitian being featured as the man it is her husband showing her Haitian roots and her current life. Aliza Nisenbaum usually paints portraits and likes to learn the story of the person who she is painting before she does the painting like in her painting "The Ones Who Make It Run" where she depicts the workers who make the Laguardia airport run.

Pieter Bruegel uses the his broad perspective and landscape paintings to be able to add more of the human experience to each painting. Each of his peices is teeming with life and is a commentary on exuberance and overarching human joy. Pieter Bruegel uses higher vantage points to get a larger plane of view and be able to add more detail and depict more people in their day to day lives.  Like in his painting 'Hunters in the snow' He depicts not just the focal point which would be the hunters and their dogs but also uses them being on a hill to show the lives of so many more people and capture their individual stories. He does the same thing with his painting 'Children's games' where he uses a vantage point to be able to see and tell the stories of more people in the background.

The main difference between contemporary artists and historical ones like Pieter Bruegel is the focal point of the painting. With Pieter Bruegel it's not all about the people in focus and he puts just as much effort into them as the people in the middle and background. With contemporary artists it's all about the people depicted. They use bold contrasting colors to bring your focus inward on a single focus point. Pieter Bruegel on the other hand uses contrast and little pops of color throughout his painting to have your eye constantly torn between different people's storries and the more you look at his paintings the more there is to uncover.