Family Portraits
As Mr. Canaday has great experience with analyzing works of art, he has no trouble using visual rhetoric terminology to describe the two portraits The Peale Family and The Bellelli Family. In addition, he is able to see aspects of the paintings that the casual viewer would overlook. For instance, Canaday notices that although the family seems to be divided into two groups, they remain united through eye contact, the resting of hands on shoulders, the spilled fruit present in both sides, and one side painting a portrait of subjects in the other group. He also catches minor artistic errors, such as skewed body proportions. In order to increase his credibility, he gives background information on the history of each family, and specific family members. Furthermore, he mentions that he graduated from Yale, and that he has both taught and professionally critiqued art. If the opinion of such an individual cannot be considered credible, then my inexperienced and woefully underdeveloped analysis of the two paintings should be instantly disregarded. Recognizing this fact, I do not dare imply that my personal views on the painting are to be taken as the true way the portraits are meant to be interpreted. However, prior to reading Canaday’s essay, there were some things that I saw differently than him. For instance, I thought the division in the Peale family (through spacing) was meant to be more meaningful than simply giving the individuals more personal room. It could perhaps symbolize an issue dividing the family in two.
