Artist: John Olsen

Title: Five Bells

Date: 1963

Medium: Oil painting on hardboard

Currently: Art Gallery NSW: 20th & 21st Century Australian Art

Source: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Human Emotions

Describe: This art piece is made of cool colors. There are mainly 

shades of blues and greens but also some yellow. There is a lot of 

different motions created in this painting by the shapes and lines. There are a lot of different sized circles and many un-straight lines. There seems to be view of a city.

Analyze: In this painting, Olsen uses free drawn lines. He used a cool color scheme. In this painting, there is no repeating pattern or rhythm. But, Olsen did use a repeating shape, the circle.

Interpret: When I look at this painting, the first thing I see is a head that is metaphorically exploding. It looks as if someone is stuck in confusion or frustration and after holding in everything, it somehow just spilled out. All of the lines that are twisting shows me a lot of energy. The way the two lines running toward the bottom of the page show me a person's body. These lines look the most calm and relieved, as if to surrender to the mess in his head. He used free drawn lines to express and sense of carelessness. He used a cool color scheme to show conflicted feeling and but also a calm sense.

Judge: I really enjoy all of the different movements in this picture, starting in the middle and going in different directions. I liked how nothing in this picture is precise. The colors chosen in this painting help to show a sort of relief and sadness at the same time. Overall, I love this painting and the message that I perceive from it.