The painting that I have chosen is Icarus by Henri Matisse (1947), from the collection entitled Jazz.
Icarus shows a silhouette of a man with unrealistic features (the focal point) . As you can see, the character’s legs are a lot thicker than norm, are wider than the hips and waist and do not have feet at the end. The legs are exaggerated and the feet omitted/rejected. The arms resemble penguin wings or fins and have no elbows or hands. The arms are also exaggerated. There is a red dot where the heart would be on the chest, also an exaggeration. The combined exaggerations form the depiction of an unrealistic human body. He is in an unusual position and looks as though he is falling. There are also several yellow/gold spiky objects surrounding the character in a balanced and roughly symmetrical fashion giving the painting harmony.
I have deduced from the name and from previous knowledge of the painting that this portrays part of the story of Icarus (ancient Greek myth). It is a story of a man freed from prison by his father who had fashioned wings made of wax and feathers. Icarus was warned not to fly 2 close to the sun but he didn’t listen and before long the heat of the sun melted the wax and the feathers fell as did Icarus. (I am suggesting that the yellow gold objects are feathers falling from his wings).
The placement of the feathers surrounding the focal point leads the eye around the page and the eyes are drawn to them as they stand out against the medium blue background and the black silhouette of the character. The colours used are dark and cold colours emphasising the sorrow contained in that moment of the story. I believe that the red dot (or the heart) is present to reinforce that the character is a human and mortal and stating that he can die and he will.
It is in 2D and no depth has been created, also there is a lack of texture and the surfaces are smooth. This is because it is a silhouette. Also there is no movement either, it is just a snapshot of the moment when the wings had fallen and Icarus began to plummet.
Back to exaggeration