Painting-Martin Goodwin

Painting by Peter Booth

Written by Martin Goodwin

Peter Booth was born on the 2 November 1940 in Sheffield, England. He and his family came to Australia in 1958, where he worked as a labourer for several years before attending the National Gallery School in Melbourne.

 ‘Painting’ by Peter Booth was painted in 1977 in Melbourne, NSW. It was accepted into The National Gallery of Victorian. The dimensions to it are 182.5 x 304cm (horizontal) it is also an oil on canvas picture. This artwork has caught the attention of many so it is time for the world to get a better understanding of what it is about.

Since this artwork uses oil paints it gives it lots of different colours which gives it emotion and expression. This picture give out a sort of dark meaning, for example the earth is black with all sorts of different coloured smudges, and also there is no light colours in the background except for a white bull-terrier dog behind a whited faced man in a large coat with red eyes. All the features of the picture fit in very well with each other.

Many colours have been used in the painting, but some of them are hard to see because they are used is small proportion compared to the brown and black and sometimes red. But since there are so many splotches it makes the colours visible.

This painting represents Peter Booth’s belief that part and the whole are the same and cannot be changed ever.

There are many parts of this painting that Peter Booth included to have a meaning such as: the dog, which in a way is the only thing that is fully white which could mean that life, and the man in the trench coat can be seem as artist-everyman-prophet in a journey into an apocalyptic world as a consequence of violence and greed. The other objects are representing fragments of nature.

Personal Opinion:

I don’t really like this artwork, even though it has a lot of good colours there is something depressing about it.

I do think that it is a good artwork since it has heaps of colours.

I don’t reckon this is an important artwork, I think it just shows a message/meaning.

This artwork to me is good enough to put in a museum, and it has into: The National Gallery of Victorian.

I have learnt that artwork does not need to be in certain style to express happy, sad, ect meanings.

ART IS WORTH 1000 WORDS!!