Vanderbilt Art Collection

[Jeff Fuchs]

The Zorn seems to be a rule breaker. The background figures -- the ones in bright light -- are, by logic, dominant, and the foreground dancers are painted in more subued colors and softer light. Still, the composition is so strong that your eye is drawn straight to where Zorn wants it.

It's like the delimma of painting a subtle blue object in the foreground and a bright orange one in the background, and still getting the blue to advance. The composition is what makes it work. A good lesson there.

[Tom Edgerton]

Contrast, softness/crispness, and saturation. Nine times out of ten, contrast trumps all. Note the corkscrew line of greatest contrast coming in from the top, following the curtain--right to their heads--and continuing down the near female dancer's side. Slightly crisper edges along there, too.

[Mary Sparrow]

Beth! I wish I had known you were here! I would have loved to have met you for lunch. I'm very close to Asheville. Your post reminds me it's time to go back through the Biltmore, it's been a while.