Still Life with Peaches, Pear and Cup, 5

This drawing is jumpin’.

In a River North Café in Chicago I once asked the drummer of a jazz group that had just completed a set, what they call it when they’re really playing well.  He said, “We’re jumpin.”

So, this drawing is jumpin.

It has no parts.  Just sweeps you up, like a good jazz piece.

You can look at the round forms and recognize the reference to round fruit but at the same time you also see the whole drawing.  Ditto for every element in the drawing.  Even the ellipse on top of the cup.  Behold the swinging ellipse!  That’s some jumpin ellipse you got there.  But it, too, is a seamless part of this jazzy drawing.  I can hardly talk about it, just want to throw myself into this compelling agitation.

Wait a minute, you say, this has parts.  Well, yes, of course it has parts but each part is so well integrated into the whole, that I don’t get stuck on any one part.  My eye moves through the whole page, over and over.  To stay with the music analogy, when you listen to music you don’t hear notes, you hear…music.

We haven’t talked about the knife yet.  Notice how in this drawing the part of the knife that’s closer to us is in focus and the part that recedes into the peach’s shadow is vague.  Not only is this how we see things in reality, but, in the drawing, if the whole knife were equally outlined (in focus), it would dominate the whole drawing. The still life is not an illustration of one thing. Everything hangs together.  It’s jumpin.

I invite you to use this drawing to review what we said about these still life drawings in the past four posts.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-1/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-2/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-3/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-4/

 

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

http://www.katherinehilden.com

http://facefame.wordpress.com

http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com

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Keep It Moving

Let’s have a closer look at one of the paintings in that show at the Ethical Humanist Society: acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30,”  by Robert Frankel.  We might call it Keep It Moving.

Isn’t that what happens when you look at this?  Your eye and mind are restless, moving all the time.

How can that be?  There’s no narration, no hint of horses on the beach or racecars taking a curve or birds in flight.  The whole composition is nothing but rectangles, all placed solidly and stodgily on one of their sides.  Nothing tips, everything says STABILITY.  But does it?  If the composition were stable, you’d doze off.  Instead, your mind is jumpin’ as it does when you listen to jazz.

These rectangles are flat, you say, isn’t that what rectangles are, flat?  Yes, they are flat.  But, if they’re flat, how is it that this image draws you in to puzzle out your sense of depth?

And what is that white rectangle with the thin horizontal black one doing there in the midst of all this popping color?  Imagine this white/black thing in any other color combination.  See? Gotcha!

http://ethicalhuman.org/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/exhibit-at-ethical-humanist-society/

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

http://facefame.wordpress.com

http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com

www.katherinehilden.com

www.khilden.com

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Triptych

It’s not really a triptych, it’s one painting. But there are prominent vertical lines that suggest a division into three parts.
Altar pieces in the Middle Ages often took the form of a triptych, where the center panel was larger and depicted the main theological message. In this painting, however, the center “panel” is rather vacant. It has the least detail. It leaves you peaceful and open to possibilities. Your eye is drawn to the edges, where the action is and this keeps you jumpin’, as they say in jazz.
At the top left there’s a circular form, a sort of blue balloon atop a narrow black “stem.” Of course, we associate this to a human head. The artist’s intention was to balance the  disk in the lower right corner. But in the upper part of a painting such a round shape (especially on a “stem”) will trigger the human association. Once we have that, we can even find legs in the painting.
This reminded me of the games Picasso plays.
Painting by Michael Quoss, oil on canvas, 30”x40”.
Pablo Picasso, “The Shadow,” 1953.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
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http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com
http://www.katherinehilden.com
http://www.khilden.com

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