Lee Kent painting analysis

 

Value

This absolutely beautiful piece by lee kent I came across on reddit today is an absolute masterpiece when it comes to composition and value control. If we were to take the image and break it down into sections of value we would find that the further back in the image we go the closer the darks get to one another. In the back, top right of the image we see a ghostly figure who we assume is the antagonist looking down on a scene. The values when we look here are all within the darker half of the value spectrum Here we can also see lightest parts of the figure are on the ridges on the head where light softly touches and the eyes which are a 5 on the value scale. 

 As we move down the image we come to this magnificent dragons face which brings the image into the midground. Here we see there is a greater variety of value range here  The image, except for the highlight along the top of the head remains in the 5 and above (darker) range of values but there is more detail and cast light as we see highlights of the inside of the mouth that are actually quite light, push the teeth on the right side of the head towards us. There is a remarkable use of form shown here as we see the head has lots of form shapes that move in and out of the light cast on it. 

On the second half of the piece, the bottom half is where we see the largest variety and contrast with the top of the image in terms of value/. the lightest values in the image are found on the lightened areas of the cathedrals in the backdrop, the armor of the protagonist of the piece and her face. These are all our focal points. The rest of the details are done with value ranges that are not highly contrasted with one another which allows her to put a lot of variety in the piece without having it distracting. 

Composition

There is a lot going on in this piece! There is a clear visual hierarchy and use of forms and rhythm to point our eye where he wants us to go. At the top we have this strong contrasting dark shape that casts a strop silhouette over the whole image, we can see this silhouette also connects with the darker shapes on the left hand side of the piece and it connects with the figure and the shadowed warriors on horseback pretty well. 

We also see a rule of three going on here where we see the pillars of the cathedral point us to various places of interest, we see the top one is pointing at the head of the figure in the background, the second one down is level with the dragons head and the third one down is pointing us towards the eye of the dragon, showing off the mouth and is also level with the face of our protagonist. 

The organization of lights and darks is really interesting because we see a sort of asymmetrical organization of darks and lights with the darks encapsulating and forming around the lighter colors. Our eyes are directed inward to the painting by the use of the skulls and how the face the same direction the girl faces and the vines on the right side all point us towards the woman. The rule of 3 is also shown in the scale of the other two dragons that add visual interest to the piece. Other pieces of visual interest are sprinkled throughout the piece, for example we see birds flocking around the temples giving a sense of scale of the cathedral and the dragon and the monolithic figure in the background.

Edges

Another way he creates contrast in the image is his use of lost and found edges. In the background figure we see some strong edges inside the silhouette of the looming figure but the edges of the silhouette itself are lost in a hazy misty feel of the stormy sky. This contrasts strongly against the dragons head which has on the front end very strong edges to differentiate it from the figure in the background but looses its edges as we get further to the left of the image. 

We see a similar contrast of lost and found edges in the wings and silhouette of the dragons floating in the sky's, which the one on the darker background has stronger edges while the one on the lighter background is not nearly as dark and the edges are really soft.  We can also see a lot of soft lost edges in the mouth of the dragon. This same lost edge approach is used and given a painterly feel in the bottom left of the page. 

These edges are strong when differentiating from a background element but are lost in the silhouettes themselves, this with the close value palette gives them a ghostly feel and we see this as well on the skulls on the back of the protagonist, they bleed into one another with only some of the edges for some of the skulls defined.  As you would expect the figure herself though is cut out from her backdrop with very strong edges  in the armor and sword. Herr entire silhouette on the right hand side is found by hard edges and the armor on the left side is also hard edged but we get lost edges as we go further down the silhouette. 

Color. 

here we see a strong contrast and use of yellow and gold and greenish hues to define may parts of the image. the background sky for example is a pale gray yellow greenish tint that becomes a cooler blue as it goes down the image. The tree branches are a dark purplish color and the wings of the dragon are a dark red. As we get to her flowing cape we see the bottom half of the cape in shadow is purplish. Her armor is a grey blue which contrasts against the warm pink color in her face. The dragons face is interesting because there is a subtle contrast of orange and blue in the rendering of the dragon which helps him pop forward from the backdrop.