I choose the painting “Othello” by Hannah Tompkins.
The most interesting aspect of this painting is the author’s selection of insignias. She uses two main contrasting colors, white and black, in order to symbolize the tragedy – the fight between good and evil, light and darkness, truth and falsehood. In addition, she uses auxiliary colors in this picture, which provide contextual connectivity with the audience and mirror the predicament of the story. For instance, green or blue color that we could see on a web, Desdemona’s face, and one small patch in the right side of Othello’s forehead represents an “infection of jealousy”, that weaves the web of intrigues, contaminates Othello’s mind and eventually kills Desdemona. The composition of the picture is also very interesting. The central figure of Othello is divided by the shadow into two parts, black and white. This represents his nature, described as an alienation of a man, trapped among his emotions and inner fight between truth and hate. The hand that stifles Desdemona, albeit matched with Othello’s, arises from the darkness possessing Iago’s colors. That could be interpreted as that the hand of Iago, rather then Othello, killed Desdemona.
Behind the Othello’s back we could see the Iago’s figure. His eyes are covered with a black mask. His hair and beard are white giving him the appearance of “goodness”, while his facial expression alludes to his success in counterfeiting his wicked intentions with a demonstration of “virtue”.
Emitting from the center of Othello’s head is the grim web that intersects with a secondary web issued from Iago. The diffusive impurity of all the colors in the web reaffirms and emphasizes Othello’s confusion and his inner struggle with all existing intrigues.
At the bottom of the picture we could see the Desdemona depiction. Her face is blue, lifeless and emotionless. Unlike Iago and Othello, her image seems pure, without adding any dark colors. The emissions of white color around her head reminds a halo, which implies at her innocence.
Allegorically, this trio, depicted by Hannah Tompkins, may be interpreted as following: negative emotions ( Iago) such as jealousy, anger and hate always exist in a human nature (Othello). They are interconnected by the same unbreakable chain or web, but each person makes the choice for himself, whether one would go on about the pride and anger, thus kills one’s inner light and truth (Desdemona), or would sided the light and truth and listen to one’s heart. There is always a choice, but general solution for everybody doesn’t exist
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