Isaac Brodsky

Isaac Brodsky

The Luxembourg Gardens in Spring

circa 1910

     A breeze winds itself in and out of this vignette. Momentarily it tickles the child's hair as she loses herself in whatever pebble or tassel of weeds that her eye finds clawing at her shoe. It then slivers over the ground, like an unseen blanket, to brush against the light ruffles of skirts and string laces, causing a dog to steal a slight yawn and then - as if to make up for its brief laziness - to alertly stiffen its aged, somewhat wonky ears into two miniature patrol guards, each of which twitches its thorough disapproval at the disruptive nature of those wavering hemlines (it lets out a low bark).
     Now it steers away: the soft wind splits itself into two puffs, maybe three, and they hastily shoot up the ripening spine of a bright young thing, its knobby branches quickly bowing and flirting with such dashing gusts of air. They jump, they leap, they make their final pirouettes and then paff! The applauding leaves and clattering sticks cease their noise; they fall still, they resume their stagnant thoughts. But the playful breezes refuse to pause - victim after victim they stroke and tease; if boredom strikes, they spread their game into the shadows, multiplying their tiny terrors into the dancing grey-blue shapes that know no boundaries, that recognise no crevice or patch too small. The clusters of parasols, the lulls of conversations, the red ribbon on the boy's straw hat: all enjoy the whispers of spring. 

Carl Larsson

Carl Larsson

Open-Air Painter

circa 1886

     A painting within a painting: in noticing the tiny splotch of red on the artist's canvas our eye inevitably draws itself across the bumpy breadth of snow to the bigger spot of red, clearly shaped in the form of a sleigh-like carriage equiped with reins, rickety wheels and a rather audacious horse. Larsson uses this clever trick of staging his painted 'props' so as to pull his audience into the scene. Like agitated winter rabbits we are constantly bouncing and zig-zagging across the tableau as our attentions are grabbed by the strange shapes nestled here and there, or by sudden urges to discover or re-visit specific details - or simply to escape into the distant copses. The spindly branches of the largest tree, possibly an elm, spread themselves into a flaked hovering web of snow-capped tentacles, all of which prod their wirey tips into the biting air so as to taunt us, to threaten to snatch and drag us inwards. But we are not that unwilling to venture in closer: the skis of the boy's wooden sled, the faint central road heavily pounded with years of pastoral traffic and the pairs of fleeting sledge marks - all converge to form a stepping stone over which we may easily and weightlessly trip into this wintery realm.

     But will we choose to remain in our cozier worlds and admire it from a distance? Or, like the heavy wisps of smoke and charring timber and frozen air, will we let ourselves gently recede into this nineteenth-century vista?

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Fisherwomen on the Beach

circa early 1900s (?)

     They are grouped together like a hoard of shells, cupped in a large sand-polished palm of some unseen hand as if precious and rare. Their dresses and headscarves, the pale pure colours of which heighten the already blinding sea of sunlight, flap casually and chicly like crisp, starched wings, resonating the cool power of the coast's wavering drafts. Pouring in from the side the women bare themselves as a subtle barrier between us and the indecisive wet world beyond. Their detached indifference conflicts with their foreground presence, and they do not return our gaze. With heads bent they swim in their own separate worlds; they recede from us in a slow, sloping decline towards the base of the shore, forming a slight pull or figurative trail for us to consider.

     Our eye has little choice but to notice that floppy moss-green notebook (from which a wind-swept page is about to be flicked over) or the braided wicker basket, sun-bleached with the years and determined to serve at least as many more. We see the freckled patterns of flowers and dots; the sagging linen pouch clutching the man's aged hips, and the steady furrow of his brow; and the plain sails, turgid with air and un-yielding strength, cradling the tossing winds. Raking the surface the waves pile over one another, frothing and spitting, creating a pulp that, if not for its translucency, assumes a kind of a salty marmalade - one thickly spread over a doughy base of clams and corals and cast-down creatures. And, just as the women are with their own thoughts, it is into this that we plunge and drift, and soon become lost at sea.

Maria Iakunchikova

Maria Iakunchikova

Oranges 

circa 1895
(progravure and oil on panel)

     The coarse and roughly-incised grooves of this piece are like fresh scrapes on the skin: they are things that require attention and tending to, and they force one to scrutinise (or at least remind one of) what lays beneath any surface, fragile or not. These particular grooves - gouged by a sturdy and confident hand - are just as much part of the painting as are the painted objects themselves, perhaps even more. Like prominent rivulets they run their never-ending course in order to emphasise and join together the contours of the shapes they outline with the original material into which they are carved. They unify the composition with its backing, giving both a physical depth and equal importance, as well as call attention to the painting's woody flesh. 
     It is arguable that the boldest features of this piece are not so much the shapes or the bright pigments, but the actual way in which it was created. Each petal, each twist of the thick stems and of the bowl's gnarled tracery relies most on its incised gritty silhouette. In this way the artist has given her subjects a weighty feel; she has literally exposed the meat of her piece by cutting and attacking its skin so as to lay bare its full potential as a simple still-life and to testify, in a sense, to the alluring qualities of texture!

Filipp Maliavin

Filipp Maliavin

Dancing Peasant Woman

circa 1913

    

     With a single swish of this woman's dress a story materialises across the folds and creases of its fabric. We fall into these as if engrossed by the painted pages of a rich tale; yet in this particular narrative we learn of everything but luxury and extravagance - at least in the material sense. Stronger than the colours themselves is a proclamation of raison d'étre. However burdened this woman may be by the requirements of her unsophisticated and 'lowly' vocation she refuses to let it degrade her; she lives through the little that she has and she proudly bears the crude beauty of the land she cultivates day after day. Her mysterious moves are like the words of another language, but through these rhythmic steps she traces for us an outline of the world with which she is most familiar. Her skirts, billowing with vulumptuous breaths of earthly air, echo the lumps and bumps of untouched terrain, blotched with spots of petals and leaves and of uncombed blades of grass; her land, her métier, is her very skin and clothes. Only when we see the pinched waist, the deeply-shadowed face and the flexed hand are we gently reminded of the human being that inhabits this painting. She teases us with her silent laughter; she gestures defiance in playing 'leader' (should we not follow her trailing skirts to wherever they may lead?) and she grips us with a hurricane of underappreciated wonders. Now comes the time to question whether her story really is as poor as it is real...

Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer

Girl in Red Hat

circa 1665

     This girl assumes a role within a role. Like a puppet she is placed in a space and made to play a character according to the rules. Through her composure she must express the étiquette of her day, and in her masquerade of props she must camouflage her personality. But is this a convincing performance?

     Her true self - hidden beneath the veneer of her slightly haunting anonymity and her theatrical clothing - is but a curious introverted youth whose eyes, strong and steady, hold one's attention with a refreshingly honest stare. Even if her adolescent frame is muted by the magnificence of her costume she still exudes the qualities of a child, and it is with these that she masters control of her unfamiliar grounds. Her open moist mouth and her flush cheeks resonate an innocence that contradicts the posh hat and the fancy earrings, and her posture - however controlled - suggests an awkward uneasiness. The lighting accentuates her porcelain skin and destroys her superficial mask of sophistication, and it is now we see that she naïvely plays the role of an imposter. We catch this girl in the moment her mask falls, and perhaps we recognise her act of "dressing up" as evading or hiding the truth. So is she really as anonymous as she appears? Does she, in fact, represent the strange stage between childhood and adulthood (a stage that adults no longer understand)? Or is she simply a face without a name?

Sir William Nicholson

Sir William Nicholson

Still-life with Statuettes and Rodin Bronze

circa 1920

     Though they are frozen in time, the strained, squirming figures in bronze release an energy of movement that manages to upset the entire meditative mood of this still-life. Not only do their bodies seem to be struggling against the confines of their own stiff medium, but they are also trying to overcome their inevitably flat two-dimensionality. Juxtaposed with solemn fellow sages they strive to keep alive a playful sense of mischievous, rule-breaking freedom. Their lively gestures resist the genre of the painting itself (as they embody anything but stillness) and they never cease to spite the disapproving air of their contemplative, almost lifeless neighbours. However, there is a sense of harmony derived from the apparent discord between the figurines. One can imagine that the large crème-coloured backdrop behaves like a sheet of rain that aims to cleanse and calm the scenery below, and as a result its vast pure blankness merges with the ceramic sages and becomes a single force of its own. It slowly wells around the bronze so as to pacify the figures' restless natures but also to beautify their stark pyramidal shape, as well as allows the three statuettes to maintain a diginified presence within their rather limited spaces so that they may happily pursue their three-way tiff. 

Paul Sérusier

Paul Sérusier

Breton Woman with a Hayfield

circa 1890

     In this scene a sense of repressed disorder emerges from the colours and shapes of the nature. The trees’ trunks and branches seem to be awaking from an intense sleep, but they only pretend to twist and stretch their limbs in attempt to lean closer to one another - almost as if to share a secret that they wish to keep from the lone woman. The tendrils of the rose bush also suggest a strange, questionable behaviour: as they slowly unfurl the budding stems remain visible against the dark mass of background foliage, implying a wandering promiscuity behind their intentions. They want to be seen; they crave the limelight. So are they really as innocent and absent-minded as their supple, new-borne blossoms suggest, or do more sinister, threatening thoughts underlie their playful dance? Mirroring this thought is the field of hay. The sticks of golden yellows appear to impatiently thrust themselves in unison beyond the border that keeps them from disrupting the peace of the small pasture and of the woman’s pensive state. They form a fiery crest that visually overpowers the shy greenery and attempts to curve outwards into the plane of the viewer. Like an aggressive wall of fire daring to spill over its boundaries this crest gives an ominous air to the painting. It reminds one of the fine line that divides humanity from nature - whether the two entities are one in the same (could the tree be growing out of the woman’s shoulder?) or whether they are growing farther apart over time – as well as sheds doubt on whether the viewer is part of the wilderness or not.

Maurice de Vlaminck

Maurice de Vlaminck

Le Cirque

circa 1906

     This is a painting of raw emotion. Each streak of colour is charged with a fervour that seems to agitate the surface of the canvas, almost like an unreachable itch that causes a pleasurable uncertainty as to whether it is welcome or not. Put together, the paint strokes behave like an army of beautifully-scaled fish which swarms across the scene with no particular destination but with the need to prove its mad love of life. But it is a current that threatens to implode on itself, unable to break free of the painting’s four constricting sides which maliciously mock it for its crazed, deranged perception of a life made simply from a few blotches of artificial pigment. Thus the army is forced to revolve inside the constraints of its own reality – one that embodies the painting’s original honesty in which Vlaminck infused his turbulent feelings, and one that echoes the shallowness of its own synthetic medium. It is fighting a visual war with itself in attempt to stabilise the two opposing qualities responsible for its very existence, and as a result the painting’s true voice breaks through. The dancing irregular shapes, the fiery colours and the sloping waves of perspective all roar in chaotic chorus a song about living life without rules or regrets, and most importantly about accepting true beauty – however uncommon – in the most unlikely places and things.