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Lot Essay
When John Luke entered the Belfast College of Art as a full-time student in 1925 his method of working was fairly brisk, the emphasis placed on capturing the visual effect of his subject, which was often landscape. In 1927, however, he won a scholarship to the Slade School, London, where he studied under the celebrated Henry Tonks, who greatly influenced his development as a draughtsman. Under Tonks his technique gradually became more and more mannered, eventually evolving into the highly stylized and polished mode for which he is usually remembered.
This Still Life composition is interesting, therefore, as it shows the earliest stage of his journey towards stylization. Here, in a subject which is common enough in Luke's work, the artist has begun to emphasize the shapes and forms of the objects he is painting over and above their nominal characteristics. Thus the underlying architecture of the arrangement, emphasized through geometry and line, becomes more important than the visual appearance of the objects. Colour, too, is subjugated to line, which is right, precise and economical.
Luke's painting technique was painstakingly slow, 'I'm afraid I'm very much a one job man' he once wrote to the poet John Hewitt, 'my strength [he continued] lies in making the most of one job at a time, in sustained thought and effort, to bring it to the highest level of organization completeness I desire', attributes that can clearly be seen even in this early picture.
We are very grateful to Dr Brian Kennedy for his assistance cataloguing this lot and providing the above catalogue entry.
This Still Life composition is interesting, therefore, as it shows the earliest stage of his journey towards stylization. Here, in a subject which is common enough in Luke's work, the artist has begun to emphasize the shapes and forms of the objects he is painting over and above their nominal characteristics. Thus the underlying architecture of the arrangement, emphasized through geometry and line, becomes more important than the visual appearance of the objects. Colour, too, is subjugated to line, which is right, precise and economical.
Luke's painting technique was painstakingly slow, 'I'm afraid I'm very much a one job man' he once wrote to the poet John Hewitt, 'my strength [he continued] lies in making the most of one job at a time, in sustained thought and effort, to bring it to the highest level of organization completeness I desire', attributes that can clearly be seen even in this early picture.
We are very grateful to Dr Brian Kennedy for his assistance cataloguing this lot and providing the above catalogue entry.