This document contains summaries of two paintings: Café Terrace at Night by Vincent Van Gogh and The Scream by Edvard Munch. The Van Gogh painting summary describes how he used monocular cues like relative size, interposition, atmospheric perspective, and texture gradient to create a sense of depth and distance. The Munch painting summary explains that he used Gestalt principles including proximity to group the two men, similarity to create the patterned sky, and closure to allow viewers to complete the partially drawn sailboats.

1. 3.04
ASSIGNMENT
Part 1

2. Café Terrace at Night
Vincent Van Gogh -1888
www.icollector.com
This painting is an oil painting of a
French Café in the fall on 1888.
Mr. Van Gogh portrayed depth in
this picture by using monocular
cues, such as Relative Size,
Interposition, Atmospheric
perspective, and Texture gradient.

3. Relative Size
The monocular cue of relative size
means that objects that should be a
certain size appear smaller in the
picture, making it seem farther away.
In the painting of the café, the people
in the background look very small.
We are used to people being around
6 feet so seeing these people as
being very small gives us the
impression that they are far away.

4. Interposition
This monocular cue is also known as
overlap. It is when on object blocks
another one, giving the impression that
the blocked object is behind the other
object, and thus further.
In this painting, the balcony is
obstructing the view of the building.
This leads us to believe that the
building is behind the balcony and
farther away from the viewer.

5. Atmospheric Perspective
This monocular cue, sometimes
called aerial perspective, uses the
fact that the farther away an object is,
the hazier it gets. This is because
there is more dust in the air, causing
the image not to be as clear.
In this painting, the stars are very
blurry. This is because they are so
far away and there is a lot of
mediums that the light must travel
through to reach our eyes. Because
they are not so clear, we believe that
they are far away.

6. Texture Gradient
The texture gradient cue means that
as an object is farther away in the
distance, the texture becomes
smaller and finer. It is harder to
notice the detail of objects at such far
distances.
Looking at the stones, the ones that
are farther away have less detail.
Instead of being black, orange, and
grey, they are mostly all orange.
They lost some of the detain because
of their distance.

7. 3.04
ASSIGNMENT
Part 2

8. The Scream
Edvard Munch – 1893
www.edvardmunch.org
The Scream is a painting made by
Edvard Munch in 1893. Edvard
Munch is known for his abstract
work.
In this piece, Mr. Munch uses
different Gestalt Principles. He uses
proximity, similarity, and closure.

9. Proximity
Proximity is the principle that states
that people have a tendency to
perceive objects that are close
together as being part of a group.
In this painting, most people assume
that the two men in the background
are together. This is because they
are close to each other.

10. Similarity
The principle of similarity states that
humans perceive things of similar
shape, color, and size to be in
groups.
In this painting, the top part is
different shades of orange stripes.
This is made to give the impression
that the sky is made up of those
colors.

11. Closure
The Closure principle states that
people have the tendency to
complete figures and ‘close in the
lines.’
In the background of this painting,
there are two sailboats that are not
fully drawn in. Because they are so
small, the painter decided to only
paint part of the boats and let us ‘fill
in the rest.’

12. SETH ADLER
Café Terrace at Night The Scream