Dead or Alive?

If we think about the most likely colors of the physical objects: the trees look quite luscious, and the leaves would probably be green.  The trees look to be in somewhat of a meadow, and so what looks like hay is probably true green grass.  What very well could be a stream flowing through the meadow is made to look like a dirt path.   I chose this painting for two reasons: to talk about the aspect of color in this particular image, and because my favorite color is brown.  In some visuals, we talk about color being a distraction, thereby removing the need for it altogether.  Kress and van Leeuwen introduce the concept that color is diametrically opposed to the organizing principle that says how to represent the real in a given context.  Some argue that in certain images, the real becomes coded by color, and is thereby contributes to the overall rhetoric of the image.  In some cases, color can be an instrumental piece of the medium.  In this particular painting, I think color is a distraction—distorting the representation of the real.  What could be alive and thriving in this image is made to look dead or dying.