Art Critique

"La Libraire" is a piece of art hanging in the atelier of its artist, André Martins de Barros, in Montmartre, Paris. Filled with a warm color scheme, this painting is beyond creative. It's a painting of books creating a picture of a person. For example, two books flared out on the left side of what would be the face create hair. In addition to creating a person out of books, this person is also reading a book. It is a man with a beard, a hat, and one eyeglass. This painting has many meanings, and people interpret it in a variety of ways.

One person thinks the man is a rabbi. Another commented that it was ironic to have books reading a book. The interpretation that caught my eye was made by a man who said the concept of the painting is to study ourselves. Of course, we could never be completely sure what the artist was intending to say unless he says so himself. And so he says in the following quote what all of his art accomidates: "The conflict of man fighting his fellow man, the role of nature, and the struggle for existence are all constant themes in my imaginative paintings: from simple joys and beauty to troubling scenes of apocalyptic proportions. Yet, in each piece, a sense of optimism and even whimsy is readily apparent."

The art was created under a movement know as fantastic realism. The idea of fantastic realism stems off of realism which focus' on things in life that are real. Fantastic realism, though, is reality expanded to the point of fantastic. It starts with the ordinary until it can encompass unusual aspects. It is applied to this painting because the actual figure can be created using books, but it expands to fantastic when the it's a human made out of books reading a book. It's realistic to see a human reading a book, and it's realistic to stack books, but it's fantastic to stack books into a formation to create a human reading a book.

All in all, "La Libraire" is an amazing piece of art that contains many diverse features of artistry. It has a warm color scheme, it provokes many thoughts and opinions, it has concepts that pertain to life such that we should study ourselves, and it follows the fantastic realism movement.