Scissor Craft

In a random google today, I came across this wonderful website by artist Wilhelm Staehle. I have always enjoyed silhouette illustrations, ever since I first discovered Arthur Rackham’s pictures when I was a child. I do like Staehle’s biography on his website – it reminds me of that other great children’s author, Lemony Snicket.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theater is a gallery for the works of Wilhelm Staehle, a horribly disfigured gentleman who often frightens small children when passing. In his free time between sporting for fox hunters & dressing his disturbingly broad collection of taxidermy, he finds time to make silhouettes. He begs you to enjoy them. Or at least not to inform him if you do not. He thanks you for your time.

Look through his gallery.

Primavera

La Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, c. 1482Last night at 8.44pm it was the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere. I won’t bore you with all the scientific details of this astronomical event – suffice to say this is the date day and night are the same length. The word ‘equinox’ itself sounds so pretty and mysterious, as though it ought to be marked by strange and beautiful occurrences.

Once such beautiful thing that was immediately brought to my mind is Sandro Botticelli’s 1482 painting Primavera. I have always adored the gorgeous detail and the lush profusion of flowers, oranges and leaves. Apparently there are 500 identified plant species, with about 190 different flowers in this painting, and at least 130 of these have been named! My jaw drops in admiration of Botticelli; I bow to the master.

Read Wikipedia’s interesting entry on the painting.

Paper Paintings

Joseph Albers collageRecently a two-volume book on Joseph Albers (1888–1976) landed on my desk: Interaction of Color, by Joseph Albers (Yale University Press, 1963). I had never studied him or his work, and was unfamiliar with it. Upon a flick through the book, I really can’t say that I was particularly excited by his abstract homages to the square. They make me yawn in fact. But two paper collages did catch my eye and impress me.

Woman with a Hat, Henri Matisse, 1905In an effort to understand the relationship between colour as expressed by old masters, Albers created reproductions of their work; two are presented in his book. One is Matisse’s fauvist painting Woman with a Hat of 1905, and the other is an Expressionst work that I don’t recognise (even a Google images search didn’t enlighten me).

So often we see paper collages created from cut paper – and many times very intricately – that it was a thrill to see these torn pieces of coloured paper laid side by side. Exciting and tactile, with a messy immediacy about them, their rough edges blend like paint, making the collages far more akin to painting than their sharp-edged counterparts.

Joseph Albers paper collageHere is what Albers says about them:

Therefore, in our study of the masters – both past and present – there is, beyond mere retrospection and above verbal analysis, re-creating by re-performing their selection and presentation of color; their seeing and reading of color – in other words, their giving a meaning to color.

Our aim is not production of precise replicas as copyists do in museums. We try to give a general impression only as to climate, temperature, aroma, or sound of their work – not minute details.

The purpose of such study is neither to find out, for instance, whether ultramarine or cobalt blue was used, nor to register the factual content of the painter’s palette.

It is another means of learning to develop a sensitive and critical eye for color relatedness.

What a great – and certainly educational – exercise. 

Expressionist artist Georges Rouault

Monet’s Garden

Waterlilies, 1919When I was at art college, it was considered unfashionable and bourgeois to like the Impressionists (and it’s probably still the case). Although I was never particularly a fan of the style, observing technique is always educational, and it is worth remembering that when they were alive, the Impressionist painters were considered outrageous rebels, perpetrating crimes against painting. So it was with an open mind I went to view the Winter Masterpieces exhibition Monet’s Garden, on at the National Gallery of Victoria (until 8 September).

Stormy Seascape, 1883I was pleasantly surprised by what a great job the curator did – it so often the case with exhibitions in Australia that only lesser-known paintings by great masters on view (due to the expense or reluctance of international museums or private collections to send artworks on such a long journey). There were several rooms devoted to different aspects of his work, including a wonderful semi-circular room at the very end showing a panoramic video of 24 hours in Monet’s house and garden, accompanied by beautiful music.

Waterlilies, 1908But I was even more impressed by Monet’s work – I had not studied his life and work probably since high school. And what a remarkable tour de force in painting! What a vision this man had, and such determination and passion – visible in every brushstroke is urgent need to capture moments in time, to capture the sheer breathtaking beauty of light, even when he almost lost his eyesight.

Waterlilies, 1907His water lily paintings are so lovely and ethereal. The absence of land, the tilted plane influenced by the flatness of Japanese woodcuts, the reflections on the smooth surface of the water contrasting with the horizontal texture of the water lilies that float on the surface – all combine to create the dizzying illusion of depth, a mirror reflecting the real and yet turning that reality on its head.

The Japanese Bridge, 1924Much has been said on the necessity of standing far back from Impressionist paintings so that the eye merges all the inexplicable dabs of paint, but the phenomenon is astonishing when one actually experiences it. It’s quite amazing to sit far back from his paintings of the Japanese bridge rendered in burnt sienna, red and gold. Standing directly in front, they are a mass of writhing brushstrokes forming almost indeterminate shapes, but ten metres away the dabs suddenly fuse, coalesce and one can see the path under the rose arbour. There is depth – through the centre and through the leaves of the trees overhead where one can glimpse the sky.

The Rose Path, Giverny, 1922Vétheuil in the fog, 1879Of his earlier paintings, my favourites were those where Monet explored atmospheric effects (always one of his favourite themes). Vétheuil in the fog (1879) remained one of Monet’s favourite paintings that he refused to sell, keeping it beside him all his life. Here he was determined to capture the atmospheric effects of fog on a view of the town across the water. It is ethereal, glimpse through the white mist. The single painting of Rouen Cathedral – one of 30 canvases he painted – captures bright and warm sunlight of late afternoon, blurred and shifting into shadows, a joyous celebration of paint and light.

Rouen Cathedral, Effects of Sunlight, Sunset 1892I also particularly loved a long field of irises, painted with a palette of only five colours. Monet has done away with deep shadows and thus captured the brilliant and fresh air of a bright spring or summer morning. Field of yellow irises at Giverny (1887). The brushstrokes are almost sketchy; primed canvas is left exposed in the lower right corner. The angled brushstrokes seem also to capture the wind as it tosses the flowers and the clouds about.

Field of yellow irises at Giverny, 1887What all these paintings show is one man’s obsession with nature as a subject, and his passion and commitment in capturing it. It’s a rare opportunity to see such work in Australia – don’t miss it.

Smashing Ceramics

Livia Marin’s series of Nomad Patterns and Broken Things are just sublime. Smashed ceramic vessels appear to be melting into pools of molten clay, puddling over the table surface. Made from ceramic, resin and plaster, they are transfer-printed with patterns in the classic Oriental blue and white style.

The London-based Chilean artist says of her work:

My artistic practice has been characterized by large-scale installations and the appropriation of mass-produced and consumer objects. I employ techniques and strategies that are characteristic of Sculpture, Installation and Process Art. I employ everyday objects to enquire into the nature of how we relate to material objects in an era dominated by mass-production, standardization and global circulation.

By appropriating mass-market objects I seek to offer through the work a reflection on how we particularize our relation to them. I reflect on how, in a secular and materialist society, identities are increasingly designated through the material tokens derived from consumerism. 

Fascinating, beautiful and simply smashing.

See more of Marin’s work on her website, and read an interview with her at Underline Gallery.