UA1-WA:P3-p4-Exercise: Notes about still life

The course notes ask for comments on anything I found particularly interesting or surprising about this genre.

Generalising (since of course there are always individual exceptions), I love the human scale and interest, the sense of the person. The artist has chosen this particular group of objects to observe carefully, to spend time with. There’s often a meditative feel, giving a moment to stop rushing about and to see what is around us all the time.

Given what I saw in Cézanne (see 30-Jan-2014), still life also gives a lot of scope to bring in theory, to experiment. In a sense it is the most obvious non-abstract form which reduces the importance of the subject of the painting – a key element in the movement towards abstraction. In that light still life was a bridge to many the developments of the twentieth century, but it remains an important area of work in its own right.

I want to show a few still life works I’ve seen in recent months and found particularly interesting.

Matthew Smith
Jugs against vermillion background
1936 – 30. Oil on canvas
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/27.1992/

This painting is just pure excitement. That incredible strong colour! And to put that little strip of green top centre!! The table top is tilted and unsupported, there are red shadows but not for the blue jug. ‘Most’ still life pictures are their own little world, but the one I looked at by Cézanne showed a little of the studio around him, and here Smith shows just part of a nude woman. Smith plays with the seen and unseen, and with space – is that a mirror frame at the back, suggesting depth and a wall? In person the direction of brush strokes and the paint texture is very important. The most surprising thing in viewing this picture is the balance. There is so much information and action on the right, and on the left… I’m not sure how well it shows in the photograph, but that red on the right is so intense, so solid, while the red on the right hand side is just a bit darker, not quite so saturated – and it works.

Giorgio Morandi
Still life
1957. Oil on canvas
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/431.1997/

This work by Morandi is such a contrast, but once again colour is so important. I don’t know if it was the artist’s choice or later framing (I notice it’s not included in the photo on the gallery’s website), but that little surround of orange brings a glow and life to the painting and really emphasizes that patch of orange inside. This work feels deeply contemplative, austere and refined. That division line – the edge of the table? – is quite high, and doesn’t seem to quite line up from side to side, while in the centre lines on the largest jug/bottle almost continue it. There is careful, subtle shading, perhaps only one highlight. Colours are subdued, but still give me a sense of richness. It looks timeless.

John Brack
The Breakfast Table
1958. Oil on canvas
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/193.2013/

The colour and patterning of this work draws you across the room. The thin vertical format of the picture combines with the wobbly vertical trail of the knives and the long shadows of the glassware, and is held in place by just a couple of strong horizontals at the top. The table is so colourful – that amazing yellow, even more amazing with the spots of colour from the jam jars. I like the sly little glimpse of the black and white floor, linking to the black and white which I think is reflections in the window. The scene is domestic and lively and energetic – I can imagine the family who just shared a noisy breakfast and are now racing off to their busy days.

John Bokor
Kitchen table
2011. Pencil, gesso wash on thick textured white paper (oil paper)
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/362.2012.3/

Another exciting table! This feels much more spontaneous, unlike the careful compositions of most still life. The layers of wash and drawing create movement and life and urgency. Bokor keeps building and constructing layer upon layer. This drawing and others in the series feel fresh and young and invigorating.

The multiple lines and layers made me think of pentimenti (traces of alteration) in older works where the artist may have changed his/her mind, then the multiple lines in Cézanne’s work where he kept seeing slightly different parts of an object, and the tail of the bull in Matisse’s L’Enlevement d’Europe (see http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=75935) that I wanted in my bedroom in the Finding Affinities exercise (see 9-Dec-2013). I haven’t got to the end of this train of thought, but it feels like something I want to explore further.

Emma White
Still life with objects
2011. Archival inkjet print
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/91.2012/

This is a truly dreadful photo, taken in low light with lots of reflections in the glass, so please, Please, PLEASE click on the link below the photo or the photo itself to go to the gallery website. This is another recent and exciting work exploring the world of still life today. The artist’s methods and materials are right up to date and I love the way this still life is right back on the edge of abstraction.

George Baldessin
Pear – version number 2
1973. Sculpture, corten steel: 7 forms
artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=45188

I saw this work by George Baldessin when I visited Canberra late last year. Cézanne played with the artificiality of a three dimensional form on a two dimensional canvas. Here the fruit is once again three dimensional – but at huge scale, rigid and hard, so unlike a juicy, ripe, easily bruised pear. It’s wonderful to walk up to and around what seems like a classic still life composition.

I’m continuing my personal attempts with still life. I like this best of what I’ve done so far. I like some of the textures created by the posterizing of the image. I think perhaps it needs some other little thing with a hard reflection like the ginger beer bottle – maybe a little hard round reflective shape catching the light just in front of the deeply shadowed side of the bowl. You can see more of my struggles in my sketchbook (click here).

UA1-WA:P3-p4-Exercise: Notes about still life
Understanding Art 1 – Western Art.
Part three: Modern art and still life
Project four: Still life after 1900
Exercise: Notes about still life