Form, Type and Style

      This beautiful piece by Arthur B. Davies titled “Italian Hill Town” displays many aspects of Form, Type and Style.  For starters, this is a 2D painting done with oil on a canvas.  The style in which this painting handles its subject matter is representational.  This is due in part of the artists’ intention of keeping the contents of this painting in the realm of reality.  There is nothing abstract or nonrepresentational about this painting because everything is fit to mirror the real world.  The type of image Arthur B. Davies chose for this painting is undoubtedly a landscape painting.  However a case can be made that this painting shows hints of a genre painting, wherein there is a small glimpse of the “everyday life” aspect of farmers and townsfolk.  This claim may be substantiated through the presence of cattle grazing and the slight depiction of an agrarian atmosphere.  However I believe that this paintings intention is to depict not an agrarian livelihood but rather the broader scope of an Italian landscape due to the focus set on illustrating the many aspects of a landscape painting, such as trees hills and woodlands.  The foreground within this painting contains the oxen that are set amongst the plain and in front of the hills.  The middleground of this painting contains many hills that have little towns nestled in between them.  The background holds a somewhat cloudy sky amongst even deeper hills.  It is interesting to note the title of this painting, “Italian Hill Town”, may not refer to the predominate castle that is planted in the exact center of the painting.  There seem to be many little towns or villages that are scattered across the landscape and perhaps only the nobilities live in the castle.  Perhaps even more interesting is the way in which the light falls upon the left side of the painting and highlights the castle and small towns on that side only.  Perhaps the artist is subtly leaving a message about the hill and the people that live on it.  The right side of the painting seems incredibly dark, perhaps signifying the contrast between those that may live upon the hill and those that rely on farming and agriculture on the bottom of the hill.  It can be noted that as your eyes gaze towards the top of the hill, more towns seem to pop up as you glance around the hill, whereas there is perhaps only one tiny village to whom the cattle may belong to.  The artist does not however, use a dynamic range of color. The color palette seems to only stay in the “warm color” region, diverging only to “cool” where there is a sky and a slight hint of a lake nestled on the right-hand side of the painting.  This illustrates the artist using a monochromatic approach towards the coloring of this painting.  Perhaps the use of monochromatic colors helps this painting by demonstrating texture.  The texture of this painting seems to indicate a type of “dustiness” that may cling to the roads that lead up and down the hill.  Whereas the artist uses variations of darks on the right hand side that give off a sense of humidity or moisture that may be present in a forest-type setting.  All in all, this is a magnificent painting that demonstrates many aspects of Form, Type and Style.