Bwusagi Analysis

 

Composition

What I love about this piece right from the start from Bwusagi is the triangular composition  that is at once very simple but very powerful in how straightforward it is. We see this mythic creature, which I assume is related to to the bible sitting up on the top of a ridge that a series of stairs leads up to. We can follow the figure from the bottom, who is contrasted both in value and color to the rest of the image, and follow the steps up to the creature.

There is an interesting eye flow connection between the figure in the foreground and the the creature in the midground that is connected via the serpents tail that makes a swooping curving motion and points us directly to the hero with its tongue. If we follow it backwards up we see it leads into the back of the figure obviously and we can see the contour of the tail disappears and merges into the the leg of the monster. 

The wings create really interesting and clean cut negative shapes that we see broken into basically three shapes on both sides, although the figure leans slightly to the right or the wing on the left of the page is pushed out just a little more and because of that the negative shapes are not symmetrical. As we focus in on the creature we can see that all the elements of the creature contrast with one another. The scales of the dragon side contrast against the wavey hair of the lion and the delicate hair of the ram. The scales are even different than that of the snakes. 

Each one has its own color and shape language and of course the lion feels front and center in this shot as it looks down on the hero. This is partly from the contrast of using moving lines versus the stillness in the other figures but also the shadow on both the left and the right of the hair shape adds a sort of illuminated quality to the face of the lion and we can also see this behind him in the form of light shapes. 

We can also see little elements of interest in the form of birds that move diagonally across where he wants us to look, which is the lions face. We see a repeat of this same pattern where the space between the serpent and wing is connected through using this object of scale (the birds) comes in. 

When it comes to color we get a strong use off green, red and orange that is used in various forms of value throughout the image. The background we see a diagonal like series of shapes that move in a swooping motion that move our eye along the image from left to right.