Art and Eye

  The simple act of reading is depicted by Lasar Segall, blurred and reconstructed through a messy palette of mixed, merging colours. The subject is his first wife, Margarete, who the artist had met in Dresden in the year this work was created. It is not an idealised, intimate depiction and the foreshortened table creates gaps and distances between viewer, artist and subject. Equally, the figure is not interested in our presence as we unexpectedly enter this private, domestic scene - she remains engrossed in the mundane activity of reading. She leans forward, her shoulders hunched, with one arm propped up on the table in a casual position. The edge of the book is pulled up towards her features, suggesting her interest in her reading material, dragging the words closer to her as if to read with further intensity. Dressed in a simple white shirt with her hair pulled back away from her face, her depiction is as humble as the action she undertakes. Despite the large expanse of the tabl...

  It is fitting that Turner would create a depiction of Venice so focused on colour, through his blending and manipulating of a complex palette. One of the most deeply ingrained, longstanding paragoni,  or debates, in the history of art originated between Venice and Florence, and specifically between the Venetian colore (colour) and Florentine disegno  (drawing) during the Renaissance. Turner continues that tradition through his own Venetian landscapes, firmly sitting on the colore side of the artistic fence. Usually seen as a man able to master even the most sublime, all-encompassing, over-powering forces of nature in his artworks, here Turner demonstrates that he can do the opposite, portraying Venice as an Elysian Fields of idyllic peace, where man and nature work perfectly together.  The last gasp of disegno  in Turner's view of Venice is seen only when the eye zooms in on the man-made forces evident in the work. Including the campanile of San Marco's s...

  The open mouth is not normally featured in art. Yet, it seems to be the very epicentre of the canvas here. Domenichino uses the faintest dots of white lead to pick out the teeth of John the Baptist within the dark abyss of the mouth. Meanwhile, the lips are grey and sickly as life swiftly leaves the decapitated head, with the colours serving to contrast the bright red blood seeping from the severed neck. Sitting centrally on the plate, the open mouth is at odds to the heavily closed, sunken eyes. Although the saint is now unseeing, his mouth seems to suggest a final breath exiting his body, the last gasp of life which produces an almost sensory, audible quality to the painting, or even a death rattle. The singular, central crease in the pristine, white tablecloth sitting directly below the gaping darkness equally serves to draw the viewer’s eye to the open mouth. Perhaps Domenichino is even suggesting that the last breath of John the Baptist is just strong enough to flutter the t...

  So often is John Singer Sargent defined by his society portraits which from the late 1870s, gave him international fame, a distinct style and elite client opportunities. The recent exhibition at Tate Britain successfully defined the artist through 'fashion' and his upper-class portraits with their quick, confident brushwork and equally commanding figural depictions. Studied less often, however, are the mural works by Sargent at Boston's public library which took the artist three decades to accomplish. The allegorical figure of the  Synagogue,  a particularly controversial design, seems to have been produced by a different artist entirely. Gone is the elegant pose of  Madame X,  or the sumptuous clothing of Madame Subercaseaux reclining at her pianoforte, or even the engaging, demur stare of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. Sargent instead portrays an allegory turned in on itself and away from the viewer, swaddled in orientalising, claustrophobic folds.  Sargent's s...

  As the only work remaining of Sienese goldsmith Guccio di Mannaia, the chalice he created for Pope Nicholas IV in the late thirteenth century is an incredibly important work of art. Not only does it highlight the rich, opulent nature of papal commissions, but it proves the talent of Sienese goldsmiths and their resulting influence on painters and sculptors of the period. The chalice is innovative in shape and form, but it is striking first and foremost through the use of gold. It is an object that deserves to be viewed in the flesh, because of its reflective and therefore mimetic potential – like a bronze sculpture it is activated by light and should be experienced in the round as a three-dimensional, highly decorated art object. Its complicated design features an almost architectonic base, star-like as it spills out towards the viewer. The base builds up into the stem of the chalice which is decorated with an array of enamelled plaques featuring saints, prophets, angels and furt...

  Even today the genre of still life is considered to be of lesser status and de Heem is one of many practitioners who disappears behind history painters or portraitists, because of the works he created. Yet he was a key painter of the Dutch Golden Age and gained valuable commissions beyond Utrecht, where he was born. According to Sam Segal, his portrait of William III of England, for instance, was sold for 2000 guilders which was among the highest price ever paid for a seventeenth century Dutch work of art. In this painting for royalty, de Heem combined the genres of portrait and still life to create an original, successful artwork steeped in symbolism and befitting of a monarchical representation. The works he produced later in life from the 1650s onward then extended his reputation, where he depicted a variety of flora, fauna, fruits and utensils against minimalist backgrounds to reflect the market trends of his day. Broadly speaking, de Heem’s works can be divided into two cate...