One of the galleries in The Hepworth was given over to an exhibition about 'Still Life', saying that of all the artistic subjects, it tends to be the genre 'least rated'. Often chosen in the past by female artists, who may have been tied to the home by caring and domestic duties, there was possibly an element of misogyny there. Anyway, it suggested we needed to take a fresh look at 'still life'... so I did. After all, it's still Life.
These were three of the pieces on display that I warmed to - and I could see a clear linkage between them. The sea shell arrangement was by Kaff Gerrard [1894-1970] (and was paired with one of her war time paintings of bomb debris).
The complex ceramic piece is by Simone Lyon, called Growth, Section II. I'm afraid I failed to note the creator of the third piece, the colourful pile of ceramic 'seed pods'.
During the Rennaissance, artists filled paintings of still life with a lot of symbolism, often in relation to life, death and the vanity or ultimate uselessness of human aspirations. As far as I know, there were very few (if any) female artists then.
ReplyDeleteThe collection you show here is fascinating!
I like the colours in that still life painting.
ReplyDeleteWhen studying art, I started on still life's. Either in drawing or painting. Maybe even in portraiture. It's all about training the eye and then transferring it to the canvass. I became adept at it then stopped art school, then many years later went back to learn the art of ceramics.
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