Reading Comprehension 7

In this diagram of John McGriff’s “Trucks at Rutkowski Farm “ I highlighted the diagonal elements of its composition and pop of color. The painting is divided into three major sections, the group of three diagonally oriented cars, the foreground, and the diagonal horizon. Another piece in the Town and Country section of the Greensboro Collects exhibit that is oriented much like this with shifts in its diagonals is George Tice’s “Two Amish boys, Lancaster PA”. Like many of the works covered in the explorations unit, this painting is a response to new vs. old in an awareness of surface and substance. Although the foreground and horizon are beautifully depicted, the greatest substance of the work lies in three diagonally oriented trucks with the greatest emphasis on the red truck closest to the viewer. The detail in the depiction of light on the red truck creates the heaviness that emphasizes its appearance as the central point to look at along with being the most contrasting color in the scene. Like the context of the painting, in an architectural sense this substance is “more than simply a benevolent provocative umbrella; at its best, it interacts with us on our behalf, informing our memory, allowing us to become more human” (612, roth). This diagonal element of these seemingly well loved or “old” trucks upon a rural landscape leads our eye to a building in the distance, situated in line with the blue truck that is farthest from the viewer blending into the horizon. According to Roth, architecture is “the built record of our priorities “ (roth 612). Relating to this idea this building in the distance in relation to the old trucks is how the artist addresses the conflict between new and old, in a bleak reminiscence of how this rural setting was taken over by other priorities in this case the replacement of farms with poorly planned housing developments. As this work is in a way an expression of how bad architecture can fail on a landscape, it brings truer the statement that: Architecture is the art we cannot escape”.