Tenayuca

Mystery Painting Description

by Roscoe and Joann

Mystery Painting

recreated by our Walter Hays partners

The background of our painting is red. The painting is horizontal. The outline is grey. The red outlines the light beige shapes. There is a dark-red triangle in the top left corner, and an orange-red triangle in the bottom right corner. Up from the bottom right corner there is a dark-red skinny triangle that touches the middle of the right of the painting . Under the dark top left triangle is a triangle, pointy and long. A double triangle pointed sideways stretches over half of the bottom. Inside the red is the gray outline. Inside the gray are two beige diamonds upside down in the top left corner, and one diamond makes the triangle. Underneath the small diamond is a half diamond in a dark beige trapezoid. Underneath that is a long trapezoid. To the top right of the trapezoid is a cube which is slightly on top of it. From the 1/2 line of the cube there is an upside down dark beige L which is drawn like an L but it has two walls. Between the cube and the two light beige diamonds it is all grey. To the right of the dark left corner triangle is a gray rectangle cut off a little and forward. The trapezoid is all gray.

Analysis
by Joann and Roscoe

The name of our painting is "Tenayuca." It was painted by Josef Albers in 1943. It was painted with oil paints on Masonite. The size of the painting is 22 1/2 by 43 1/2 inches. (57.2 by 110.5 centimeters) The painting is now located at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Our partners painted the colors well, except they put all the red in beige, and put gray where there was supposed to be no colors. The shapes were totally different. The arrangement was pretty good.

We could have been more clear if we had maybe concentrated more on the description. We had a hard time describing the painting. It could have been clearer or easier if we had told them better places to arrange the triangles, squares, diamonds, etc. We think the shapes and arrangements confused them because, for example, we said the L-shaped figure was in 1/2 of the cube. We thought that made it really confusing for them, Our Walter Hays partners did a good job.

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This site maintained by Lucinda Surber. Page finished 6/6/98.