![]() Many compositions are repetitive in John’s drawings and paintings, sometimes highly so-the variations between images, often portraits, remain within a particularly narrow range. Often subjects are anonymous female sitters positioned within a sparse studio interior as in The Convalescent ( ca. 1923–24), The Seated Woman ( ca. 1910–20), and Girl in a Mulberry Dress ( ca. 1923). In one corner there is a small-scale plaster head by Rodin, Head of Whistler’s Muse ( ca. 1906), a monument to Whistler for which John modeled.Īs the show progresses there is in John’s work an increasing economy of style: whether still life, portrait, or interior scene, images tend to be expressed with a more muted palette colors lighten, diffusing into patches with little voids of finely primed canvas emerging through strokes of oil paint. In the second room, Vuillard and a marvelous Hammershøi hang close by a selection of John’s interiors. The full course of her career is traced chronologically, and the exhibition includes a select group of works from her contemporaries. Sheffield Museums Trust Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Writing Table and a Young Woman, 1900, oil on canvas, private collectionĭrawing and painting were a habit from her early years, and the strength of her draftsmanship is on display from the first room in a new exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, “Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris.” This is the first major showing of John’s work in twenty years, with oils, works on paper, archival material, and personal possessions. Gwen John, A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris, c.1907–1909. Her paintings can convey a notion of “impersonality” or purity, a vital strand of modernism, more Continental in nature and closer to the maelstrom that came with the demolition of humanist optimism in the twentieth century. Gwen John’s penchant for more analytical methods, frequently returning to the same subjects, often emphasizing formal elements and with subtle variations, helps explain what makes her work so striking. When her brother Augustus John talked about the character of her work, Whistler fired back, “Character? What’s that? It’s tone that matters. ![]() The essence of Gwen John’s art is summed up by her teacher James Abbott McNeill Whistler: tone. Gwen John, The Seated Woman (The Convalescent), c.1910–20.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |