Man and Machine

3 Pages 763 Words

Visual Analysis Paper


For this assignment I chose to do the paper on Man and Machine. This is a painting that was a huge mural that was located in the Detroit Institute of Art. In the early 1930’s, Edsel Ford hired Diego Rivera to paint tis massive mural on the marble walls. Man and Machine shows a factory and the hard-working men that work in it everyday. In the front of the mural are a diverse group of men on a line. They strain and their arms are flexed as they are hard at work trying to get their job done. Behind them it extends into the rest of the factory. Thelarge machines, compared to the size men that run them. On the level above are a couple more men and the fire burning energy source for the factory. This is one of Rivera’s most popular works of art that is presented in a public place. This way it has a huge impact on everyone, even ordinary people. The large-scale piece of work uses color, linear perspective, and implied motion to get an idea across. Rivera wanted to emphasize the lives being sacrificed in factories in order for the growth of technology. The artwork is almost like a cartoon with its exaggerated size of machines and the unique facial expressions of the men. When one looks at the artwork their eyes are immediately drawn to the focal point which is the men in front. They stand out compared to the silver of the machines in the background. The relationship between man and machine in the 1930’s is depicted as being hard and almost like a war between man and machines.
The use of color in this piece really helps to define the content. The dull colors, the grays, navy blues, and off-whites of the uniforms the men are wearing blend in with the machines. Blending the colors shows that the men in the factory didn’t really have an identity while they were there. They were thrown together within the factory and worked as one in order to get the job done. This “blending” of grays, ...