As I examined the formal qualities of Georgia O’Keeffe‘s Jack-in-the Pulpit No.IV, I chose to analyze this piece as opposed to the others because it was a piece I never seen before, nor have I heard of this artist, therefore making me analyze it more closely and discover other aspects of the work, besides aesthetics.
Georgia O’Keeffe painted a series of six canvases depicting a jack-in-the-pulpit. The series begins with the striped and hooded bloom rendered with care, continues with successively more abstract and focused pieces, and ends with the essence of the jack-in-the-pulpit, standing alone against a black, purple, and gray field. All of her paintings reveal her feelings and emotions rather than the appearance of the objects.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit No.IV is an Indian turnip. There are many different elements to take into account when analyzing the form of this painting. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No.IV shows her personal feelings of what a flower naturally looks like. The line quality depicted in the stem of the flower and the leaf of the flower is made up of both curved lines as well as many noticeably straight brushstrokes. The flower is magnified and abstracts the flower across the canvas until on the “Jack” or the stamen is shown. The shape of the flower seems like it is blowing gently by the composition of the lines that make up the stamen are curved to the right of the canvas. The corners of the canvas that shows the background to the flower is abstracted by a bright white and sky blue color, which are the same colors used for the stamen of the flower.
By the look of the painting, the texture of the flower seems silky smooth by the use of soft brushstrokes to create cool colors of greens and blues. The thick brushstrokes are used for the definite shadowing around the stamen of the flower.The lines generally seem not to have an axis because the flower creates the illusion of focus to show the beauty of the flower. Her artwork including Jack-in-the-Pulpit No.IV is meant to challenge and inspire artist.
Georgia O’Keeffe enlarged her flowers within the picture frame in part to force people take notice into the beauty of a flower. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No.IV. Instead of an average flower being in a setting of a background making it an object, she makes all her flowers symbols in nature. By each series she paints, the flower gets closer and closer to the viewer. The petals have a marvelous bloom that show motion by the brushstrokes of the curvilinear line and give a viewer a since of beauty of nature.
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