Nick Simpson
Art Appreciation
Personal Response Paper

The work of art I picked to write my response on is The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David. The style of this work would be realistic with the use of shadow and gradients to make this look like a believable picture, rather than just looking like a painting hung on a wall. This is a painting of a father wielding his sons with swords while the women of the family are sitting watching and weeping. Now the story behind this painting is the men are going to fight a neighboring family, the reason the women are crying is because one of the ladies is suppose to marry the neighboring men. Despite her marriage plans, the families still fight with one another. What comes to mind for me mainly is, what is so important to fight over? Is it land control? Or maybe they are fighting for a city. Or maybe it has just been a long quarrel between the two families. Or are they just greedy families that can’t just live in peace with each other. This work also shows the sexual class structure of that time period. It shows that the women’s thoughts of feelings didn’t really matter, it was basically whatever the man of the house/family felt was right to do, happened. In this painting, the color pallet is very smooth and appealing to the eye. The shading on the robes and clothing make it look like there are actual body forms under them, and not just a mass of nothing. Even the shading on the arms of the men is done extremely