Elisabeth Blackadder (b. 1931)

As suggested in the course manual, I approach the work of Elisabeth Blackadder by watching the video on vimeo.com/25711526. Here I see the artists’ love for plants and for all kinds of objects that she collects. She shows a genuine curiosity for these flowers or objects, that she then reflects in her paintings.

Looking at her paintings, I can see how several objects are placed with a lot of space between them, allowing this space to become an important part of the composition. She uses the shapes, size and colours to balance out the composition, where the objects and the space around have equal importance. None of the objects overlap or have any sense of perspective or depth. There are also no cast shadows, so there is a sense of the objects floating in a colour field, rather than being placed on a surface.

“Stillife with cherrybark” is an example where the large purple and yellow blocks of colour balance each other and how the objects placed on the yellow surface are painted small and flat and all separately from each other. The whole is in harmony and balance. If I try to leave out the darker brown tube on the right hand side for example, the whole composition seems to tilt towards the left.

It has taken me a moment to start appreciating Elisabeth Blackadders’ paintings, but the more I look at them, the more I see these subtle touches that create the harmonious whole and I am curious to start a painting of my own inspired by her work.

Image from: Aitken dott. c2019. Scottish-gallerycouk. [Online]. [13 December 2019]. Available from: https://scottish-gallery.co.uk/artist/elizabeth-blackadder

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

I can understand why we are also asked to take a look at Matisse’s work for this exercise on using space. Like Blackadder, Matisse creates a balance with form and colour, using the whole pictureplane so that the space around them complement the objects. Unlike Blackadder, Matisse really plays with pattern, and creates a sense of perspective and depth in his stilllife paintings.

I visited the Matisse Museum in Nice while on POP1 (shortlink to blogpost: https://wp.me/p94hP8-vb) where I took a picture of this ” Nature morte aux grenades” from 1947 , a merging of interior and exterior view where form, colour, shapes and balance take over as the subject matter.

One painting that I have not seen in the flesh, but particularly like is “The red studio” from 1911. Here the paintings in the studio seem to be floating freely on the red surface, but the subtle line drawings of the furniture drawn in perspective create a sense of depth and form.

Image from: Ars. c2019. https://wwwmomaorg. [Online]. [13 December 2019]. Available from: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389

This is a combination of line and pattern I would also like to try out for a still life.

In his later works, Matisse focused more and more on form and colour, simplifying it to arrive at his famous cut outs.

A week has passed since my above text, and I just had to catch a flight over Nice airport and managed to make a quick detour to the Matisse Museum . The current exhibition is “Cinematisse”- conversation between the painter and cinema. Matisse was an avid cinemagoer and passionate about film- which was reflected in a lot of his paintings and drawings inspired by movies, with exotic influences like the faces of Inuit or the plants of the Caribbean.

To my delight, I found  “ Le Fauteuil Rocaille” from 1946 that was used as an example in the coursebook on display here today. In this painting, the way the chair occupies the whole picture frame and more is what makes it so impressive.

I observed how Matisse allows parts to remain unfinished with the canvas peeking through and used really wide, rough brushstrokes for the elements in starkly contrasting complimentary colours.

• 

• 

Other than ” Nature morte aux grenades” from 1947 that I wrote about above, there were unfortunately no other later still life paintings on display. I saw some of the very early still life from his student years, but they are still very classical and without the specific traits the artist developed.

I want to remember to allow some parts of a drawing or painting to remain unfinished, and observe the flowing, swirling lines Matisse uses, in plants or figures alike.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

When comparing the work of Elisabeth Blackadder and Henri Matisse, I feel more affinity with the latter. The comparison is somewhat unfair, because I have admired Matisse’s work for a long time, whereas I am only discovering Elisabeth Blackadder right now. I think it is the sense of depth and the playful, flowing line that draws me more to Matisses’s work.

I am curious to continue with painting still life inspired by these two artists.

(photos my own from the visit)