Luxury 101

On the 28th Street platform of both the uptown and downtown 1, you’ll find this ad for new luxury condos in Jersey City. Because really, what’s more luxurious than having a fake Franz Kline over your Ikea couch?

Let this snob tell you what’s wrong with the painting reproduction:

1. The black lines were made quickly but not lightly. They’re thick and dark because the artist kept going over them, not because the brush was well saturated. You can tell in the two tree trunks at the left bottom corner.

2. In the conversion from a vertical to a horizontal format, the triangular composition has lost its ability to hold the thing up. It now sinks, making it impossible for your eye to travel from one area to the next.

3. The black line should hug the edge of the canvas, which in return should cradle the paint. Instead the black crashes into the edge, especially at that right angle on the right side.

What’s that line in Crocadile Dundee? “That’s not a knife…” ? Now this is a Franz Kline!