Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Tower of Babel


TOWER OF BABEL
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
1563


Once again, our British Museum friends make us smarter!

more detailed pictures and close ups

Art Element: LINES
What lines do you see and where are they going?



11 comments:

  1. The lines in the painting all seem to be going toward the top of the tower; alll the lines I see are on the tower itself

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  2. Similar to Michael's comment, all the lines that I see are pointing up towards the top of the tower, trying to reach the sky (or heaven) like the story said. Any other lines in the painting are not as noticable, such as the lines representing the bank of the river to the right of the tower or the beautiful blue horizon in the backround. The rest of the lines make up very tiny people in the bottom left or what seems to be the small village bellow.

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  3. The lines in this painting look like they are going to the top of the tower, which looks like it is falling. It seems like lines from the sky are going down to the tower, like it has a force or something like that. The people look like they are going to the tower.

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  4. Just to add to my commment, after reading Andrew's statement I looked at the painting again and did notice that the tower almost looks unbalanced. The lines almost seem as though they are turning into diagonals at the top, though it is most likely part of the design to make the bricks appear as a U shape around the point.

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  5. This is nonrelated, but here is the questions website that I designed. https://sites.google.com/site/rm14questions/home

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  6. The tower seems to be made with only VERTICAL lines, which makes absolutely no sense........ Well, maybe they are just the prominent ones.

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  7. The lines seem to be going up the tower. The tower seems to be built tilted somehow. Something I noticed is there is a group of people to the left of the tower.

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  8. The lines are curved, straight, thick, and thin. They seem to be going upwards or diagonalish. Something I noticed is that thier are boats or ships by the right side of the tower. It looks like one of the boats are sinking or just burned down or something.

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  9. The lines seem to be pointing up the tower, like they are alo trying to reach heaven, just like the people.

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  10. The lines are going vertical. So they are pionting up the tower. The line tries to bring your eyes to the top of the painting.

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  11. The lines in this painting are going every way. But, the most noticeable are the vertical lines. They seem to be pointing up at the sky, towards heaven, just as the tower is. The tower was built to go to heaven. The lines sort of explain the story.

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