Art and Eye

  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...

  An outdoor setting with two figures confronts the viewer in Frederick Carl Frieseke's Impressionistic work of 1912. Yet, as the title suggests, the protagonist is in fact the orange and purple parasol that shades the seated figure. Almost like the sun itself, it encompasses the top third of the painting, allowing Frieseke to exploit the quick brushwork of Impressionism further, now in reds, oranges and purples. The detail on the parasol is indistinguishable – perhaps dancing figures, or flora and fauna motifs – engaging the eye to piece together an image of their liking. Its thin material is illuminated by the sun above, heightening its yellow glow to evoke a divine aura, almost halo-like above the seated figure. The parasol also gives the slightest hint at three-dimensionality in a broadly flat canvas, its circularity curving over the top of the figures to push the woman back who stands ‘behind’ its huge diameter. She seems to be preparing to put her own parasol up, however the ...

As a three-dimensional, life size monument, the sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia TIesnasa is immediately an eye-catching object. Now situated in the British Museum, it forms the paramount piece of the Etruscan collection. Both effigy, tomb and the skeleton within have been valuable for wider research on Etruscan artistic styles and methods, as well as the role of elite women in the society of Chiusi where the figure in question was originally from and buried. Though its paint work still remains, the tomb monument would have been more heavily decorated in its original form, now offering mere glimpses of the skilled hand of the artist(s) who designed and produced the structure. The maker was aware of the multiple functions of the tomb, not just for housing the dead but allowing the body to be recognisable in the afterlife and producing an accessible portrait for memorialisation, all tied together through the creation of an architectonic, three-dimensional structure that commanded the tomb ...

  An endless line of men that tug the rope of a small boat soon disappear into murky, burning red waters beyond. Colour is fantastical, mystical and otherworldly, producing an atmosphere far from reality. This is the Symbolist work of Marianne von Werefkin, part of the German Expressionists that worked in Munich from the 1910s. A movement so often dominated by the male names of the time – Kandinsky especially – Werefkin was a vital participant, expanding the range of art produced and displayed, complementing her work with art theory and written sources, as well as creating her own Salon upon her arrival in Munich. It is easy to get lost in biography with a piece such as this. Wasted, human potential seems to be at the heart of this work, signalled by the endless line of men pushing forward towards the edge of the picture plane. There is a sense of struggle and a universality to the suffering through the portrayal of faceless men in similar blue tones. Looking at the date produced o...

  Cut down from its original altarpiece format, the  Dormition  by German sculptor Tilman Heysacker suddenly becomes an intimate devotional panel. Expertly revealed to the viewer through the emphatic sweep of the heavy curtain on the left-hand size of the panel, we are invited into this special, intimate scene of mourning, emotion and pain. Sculpted from oak and once painted, today the colour has faded away, leaving us with a monochrome depiction of the Virgin’s death where all attention is on the figures, the use of relief and the sculpted precision by the artist’s hand. Heysacker guides the viewer’s eye to the central, devotional focal point of the relief through the circular disposition of figures. Careful to maintain their devotional distance from the viewer, the Apostles kneel and stand on opposite sides of the Virgin, who lies gracefully across the horizontal axis of the panel, evoking tomb effigies that would have likely populated the church this altarpiece stood...

  Aelbert Cuyp’s skills in contre-jour painting, or capturing the effects of sunlight, are evident in this harmonious, idyllic country landscape. It is immediately striking to a viewer how balanced the painting is when standing directly before the piece and facing the avenue of trees. As the foliage bends in a slight wind, the viewer is welcomed into the scene, stepping forward to wander down the avenue, to take in the expansive setting and feel the serene sunlight on their backs as they move forward into the picture plane. The Dutch master, one of the foremost landscapists of the seventeenth century, was clearly well trained and aware of contemporary art of the time, although little is known about his life and career. The fact that his father, Jacob Gerritsz, was a successful painter, has led to implications in scholarship of artistic skill running through Cuyp’s veins as a naturally gifted oil painter. However, it is more likely his father trained him in the Academic, accepted ...

A void of white, monochrome, spaciousness, Barbara Walker has created a white cube in artistic, two-dimensional form through her series of Vanishing Point. This white cube is also punctuated by a human presence, finely carved out of the seemingly solid mass of white using graphite. The precision of the medium, coupled with its dark tones, draws attention instantly to the figure, despite her periphery positioning at the edge of the work. Playing with ideas of vision and ways of seeing, Walker has reintroduced the black figures of Renaissance art, so often sidelined and neglected, just as they have been in historical sources. The invisible is now made visible. There is a certain sculptural tendency to the work of Walker. Due to the monochrome methods, the harsh juxtaposition of white and black, two-dimensional quickly becomes three-dimensional, giving a sense of solidity, weight and mass to the black figure here, and therefore permanence. This increases her presence, the protruding sho...