Death of Marat truly captures so many visual elements within each stroke of oil on canvas, I’d like to begin with the texture. A gritty texture appears in the cloth on his head and in the tub.
There is even contrast within the textures, as the green table cloth would seem to feel soft and the side table would seem to be rough and even give you splinters. The coloring creates variety and unity as the colors are mostly darker tints, yet his skin is pale, causing red marks on his arms and his blue veins to be visible, making you feel his death was recent. The contrast with the white table cloth and the dark blood inside of the tub is striking. The wound is dark compared to his skin making you drawn towards it. His position is crucial for where your eye is drawn to, naturally it goes to the face, but in this it feels to begin at his face and follow all the way down his fallen arm, ending at the floor where the knife lays. The artist used a lot of sharp, harsh lines on the table but very gentle lines on his body. The implied lines on the cloth and his collar bones, create an even more realistic vibe. I’d like to address the balance. Almost all of the subject is on the left side of the painting, the side table is on the right to create a balance, but the painting is still not balanced. I’ve found that with art, I often look for an invisible line of symmetry, so you can tell if there is balance and in this, even though most subject matter is on the left, his arm crosses over to the right side, creating a sense of unity within the contrasting sides. There is also a large dark textured background on the whole top side of the painting, causing all subject matter to be on the bottom half of the invisible “horizontal line”. The light source seems to be from a window, shining in from the left side,