Wednesday, January 5, 2011

More Still Lifes From William Nicholson

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Here are some more still lifes from the book  The Art of William Nicholson, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2004IMG_0911 IMG_0912
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I’ll quote from the book about his still life work:
“Nicholson’s still-lifes are generally considered his finest work, and there is no question that they show a greater range of feeling and development than any other type of picture he made. If in his early examples he might make traditional views of, say, elegant vases or glamorous arrays of flowers, he kept testing the theme, moving from large-size, vaguely allegorical and somewhat bizarre examples, such as The Hundred Jugs , an image of a kind of jug warehouse, to increasingly informal views of seemingly random objects. It is in his still-lifes that [his] colour is most daring and sumptuous, and he is most experimental in in his feeling for illumination, exploring the brightest, most silvery and golden tonalities, and also sheer darkness, from which reflective objects send forth glimmers of light.” p. 16
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The Hundred Jugs

2 comments:

Nancy Bea Miller said...

Hi Linda;
Just looked at your blog and what a thrill to see you rdiscussing this fabulous book! I also mention it in my recent article "Books for a Desert Island" in the current issue of Fine Art Connoisseur:
http://genrecookshop.blogspot.com/2011/03/desert-island-books.html
What a happy coincidence!

Linda Tracey Brandon said...

Hi Nancy, just read your well-written and insightful article, nice job! Next time ask me, I've got lots of opinions on books. (Did no one mention Harold Speed- a Dover bargain - or Loomis? One of the Speed books is always on the nightstand next to my bed.) I hope that mentioning Nicholson in your article will bring more attention to him.