Art and Eye

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Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, 'The Pale Complexion of True Love', 1899

In The Pale Complexion of Love, Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale draws on the words of Shakespeare to construct one of her first major oil paintings, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1899. Two seated noble figures are presented to a viewer, in what is anything but an amicable relationship - the man leans forward to gather the folds of the woman's dress close to him, as she sits as far away as possible, holding his gift of a necklace close to her face for inspection, and offering a displeasing look in response. Fortescue Brickdale has successfully constructed two unique characters, whilst using vivid Pre-Raphaelite colours at the beginning of her career, to make her name on the RA stage and earn herself commissions and further patronage. The quote is in fact taken from Shakespeare's As You Like It, despite the frame recording it as being from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fortescue Brickdale seems to reference the Shakespearean text more fully in her painting than the frame impl...

Fra Filippo Lippi, 'Portrait of a Woman with a Man in a Casement', 1440

In the earliest surviving double portrait in Italian painting, Fra Filippo Lippi depicts a woman and a man, in what appears to be a marriage portrait. From the Scolari family coat of arms held by the man, the two have been identified as Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who married in the 1430s. With its strong characterisation, interest in space and texture, as well as an intriguing, unique compositional choice, Lippi creates a mode of portraiture where the woman dominates and where she assumes a commanding presence right at the heart of the panel. Lippi's portrait offers not only a window into marriage, but also illustrates fifteenth century Italy in fascinating detail: his female figure wears a houppelande, a French-inspired garment fashionable at the time, whilst choosing to extenuate her neck and abdomen, the former for beauty, the latter perhaps to signal fertility. From this, it has been suggested that this double portrait may have been creat...

Rodin, 'Fugit Amor', 1886

The pulling apart and pushing together of bodies comes to define Rodin's Fugit Amor, and much of his oeuvre from the late nineteenth century. Cast here in bronze, a man and a woman cling onto one another, precariously balanced on a slab of rock, which their undulating bodies seem to grow out from. At once weighted but also weightless, Rodin's small sculpture is infused with Classical references, and becomes a conversion of opposites, symbolising the desperation and ultimate futility of love affairs. The title translates to 'futile love', already implying a barrier to togetherness or the wasted energy on the attempt which Rodin depicts here. Glistening in bronze, the two bodies become even more anguished and elongated, in a combination of peaks and troughs: the woman lifts her head and torso upwards, hand raking through her hair, whilst the man slides off the rockface, his legs dangling precariously into the abyss. However, they still seem to deliberately fit tog...

Albrecht Durer, 'The Whore of Babylon', 1496-7

It is difficult for the eye to settle in the busy scene concocted by Durer, based on the story found in the Book of Revelations. The Whore of Babylon occupies the right hand side of the work, accompanied by her many headed monster, facing off against a crowd of onlookers, and being attacked from the heavens above. Despite the monochromatic colour range of the print, shading and varying levels of detail successfully capture the drama and action of the scene, whilst showing off Durer's printmaking abilities which defined the discipline for centuries to come. Each tuft of grass, each fallen rock, each puffing cloud, are all exceptionally detailed by Durer. In woodcuts, there is only linear and horizontal shading, not cross-hatching as would be found in etching or engraving, but this does not limit the artist's hand in his Apocalypse series. Figures are crammed together on the left-hand side of the work - a crowd of onlookers balancing the many headed monster accompanying the W...

Bernini, 'Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius', 1618-19

Bernini, in an early work, depicts three generations escaping the burning siege of Troy, as they appear in the epic Aeneid, by Virgil. Carrying his father on his left shoulder, the hero Aeneas leads his younger son, Ascanius, who shelters behind him. Drawing on sculptural precedent from Michelangelo and Giambologna, the strong verticals, coupled with the emotional intent of the work, mark it as a sculpture which shapes the early oeuvre of Bernini, who would go on to stamp his authority across the Italian Baroque. There is nothing to indicate the burning city of Troy in Bernini's work, sacked by the Greeks in the Aeneid , yet there is intent, movement and drama throughout the sculpture, as was typical of Baroque works. Despite its ability to be viewed in the round, movement is best felt by a viewer who faces the sculpture from the front, as all three figures are visible from this angle, head on. Although this was a feature which was criticised at the time, it enables all thr...

Sean Scully, 'Landline Green and White', 2014

With a dark bedrock at the base of the piece, leading up to a green, almost translucent horizon at the top, Sean Scully presents his Landline Green White as a collection of parallel lines of colour. As if mapping out the layers of earth up towards the heavens, this series was inspired by the Irish landscape, and evokes the Abstract Expressionists working primarily in New York during the 1960s and 1970s. Despite its simplistic formal qualities and restricted colour palette, Scully still invites a viewer to question the meaning of his monumental painting, whilst using interesting materials to flex his capabilities as an artist, and show the range of oils in only six blocks of colour. Using aluminium as a ground, Scully instantly takes Abstract Expressionism a stage further through technique, adding a modernist undercurrent to this well-known artistic movement. Giving a shininess to the palette, the aluminium also betrays the painted strokes of Scully's hand, distinct in the u...