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Lot Essay
Still Life of Anemones and Lemons is a wonderfully vivid early still life. Painted circa 1912, after Cadell’s return to Edinburgh, the present work is one of his finest still lifes of the period, displaying Cadell’s mastery of tone and light. During his youth Cadell travelled between Scotland, France and Germany, where he was educated at the liberal Parisian art school the Académie Julian from 1898, on the suggestion of his family friend, the Glasgow Boy artist Arthur Melville, and then in Munich at the renowned Akademie de Bildenden Künste in 1907. It was the diverse artistic education he received from these vastly different cities that pushed Cadell towards the forefront of modern art, inspired by the Post-Impressionist masters he had seen on the Continent. This awareness of the international artistic movements of the day allowed Cadell to play a pivotal role in the development of Scottish art; integrating the present-day avant-garde trends into the Scottish artistic idiom.
On Cadell’s return to Edinburgh, in 1909, his oeuvre significantly developed, inspired by his travels abroad. During this period he developed a palette based on a range of whites, creams and beiges, which he often juxtaposed with black – strongly influenced by the French artist Éduoard Manet. This can be seen in Still Life of Anemones and Lemons where Cadell utilises this contrast of tone to dramatic effect, heightened by the punctuations of the vibrant yellows of the lemons and the pink and purple tones of the anemones. However, unlike still lifes by Manet, such as the striking painting Oysters (1862), which are emboldened by the sharp contrast between light and dark and the emphasis on strong edges, Cadell eschews Manet’s dramatic chiaroscuro here to create a softer and more harmonious aesthetic, which emphasises his rhythmic and spontaneous brushstroke and poetic handling of paint. The loose style of painting he deploys in the present work, gives a wonderful sense of movement, which echoes that of the Impressionist artists, capturing a fleeting moment in time, with the anemones seemingly having only being placed in the bowl a moment before. Unlike the carefully composed traditional still lifes of artists, such as Luis Meléndez’s Still Life with Lemons and Nuts (1765-1775), which the artist painted over ten years, the speed of these brief dabs of paint imbue the work with an air of spontaneous vigour and movement, as if Cadell was in a hurry to capture the moment by feathering paint in rapid succession. It seems that Cadell has approached his subject like a photographer, keen to steal a moment in time, using frenzied strokes to set down a sudden moment of inspiration, just as quickly as a camera shutter could be pressed.
This sense of movement and vitality is also expressed in Cadell’s use of tone. In Still Life of Anemones and Lemon the focus is split between the vivid yellows of the lemons and the strong red of anemone petals, nestled amongst the soft palette of the other freshly cut blooms. The vibrancy of the lemons command immediate attention, gleaming upon the dark surface of the table, whilst the flowers - which have been vigorously worked by overlapping short brushstrokes – support the heavy presence of the fruit with bright flashes of colour.
Here Cadell plays with the notions of space, creating objects that exist against the background but also merge into it: the subtle lilac of the blossoms melding with the milky wall behind and the deep navy bowl fusing with the dark table that it sits atop, while still succeeding in emphasising the different planar spaces. The positioning of his objects gives the impression of recessional depth and liminal space by acting as a zone of transition between the shadowy warmth of the mahogany table and the cold tint of the wall behind. Although loosely painted, Cadell’s composition is carefully considered. He often reused motifs and compositional arrangements in his still lifes, manipulating his forms to create exciting new variants. Here he dramatically crops his painting, boldly chopping the top section of the mirror out of his composition, to create a highly modernist aesthetic, which echoes the techniques of artists such as Matisse and Van Gogh.
Still Life of Anemones and Lemons is a highly vibrant and stylised image, which bears resemblance to the elegant interiors of his studio at 130 George Street in Edinburgh, where the walls were painted neutral shades of grey and white and the floorboards polished to a gleaming black, to enhance the airy, minimal decor. The present work demonstrating why Cadell is known as a master of colour and one of the forerunners of Scottish modern art.
On Cadell’s return to Edinburgh, in 1909, his oeuvre significantly developed, inspired by his travels abroad. During this period he developed a palette based on a range of whites, creams and beiges, which he often juxtaposed with black – strongly influenced by the French artist Éduoard Manet. This can be seen in Still Life of Anemones and Lemons where Cadell utilises this contrast of tone to dramatic effect, heightened by the punctuations of the vibrant yellows of the lemons and the pink and purple tones of the anemones. However, unlike still lifes by Manet, such as the striking painting Oysters (1862), which are emboldened by the sharp contrast between light and dark and the emphasis on strong edges, Cadell eschews Manet’s dramatic chiaroscuro here to create a softer and more harmonious aesthetic, which emphasises his rhythmic and spontaneous brushstroke and poetic handling of paint. The loose style of painting he deploys in the present work, gives a wonderful sense of movement, which echoes that of the Impressionist artists, capturing a fleeting moment in time, with the anemones seemingly having only being placed in the bowl a moment before. Unlike the carefully composed traditional still lifes of artists, such as Luis Meléndez’s Still Life with Lemons and Nuts (1765-1775), which the artist painted over ten years, the speed of these brief dabs of paint imbue the work with an air of spontaneous vigour and movement, as if Cadell was in a hurry to capture the moment by feathering paint in rapid succession. It seems that Cadell has approached his subject like a photographer, keen to steal a moment in time, using frenzied strokes to set down a sudden moment of inspiration, just as quickly as a camera shutter could be pressed.
This sense of movement and vitality is also expressed in Cadell’s use of tone. In Still Life of Anemones and Lemon the focus is split between the vivid yellows of the lemons and the strong red of anemone petals, nestled amongst the soft palette of the other freshly cut blooms. The vibrancy of the lemons command immediate attention, gleaming upon the dark surface of the table, whilst the flowers - which have been vigorously worked by overlapping short brushstrokes – support the heavy presence of the fruit with bright flashes of colour.
Here Cadell plays with the notions of space, creating objects that exist against the background but also merge into it: the subtle lilac of the blossoms melding with the milky wall behind and the deep navy bowl fusing with the dark table that it sits atop, while still succeeding in emphasising the different planar spaces. The positioning of his objects gives the impression of recessional depth and liminal space by acting as a zone of transition between the shadowy warmth of the mahogany table and the cold tint of the wall behind. Although loosely painted, Cadell’s composition is carefully considered. He often reused motifs and compositional arrangements in his still lifes, manipulating his forms to create exciting new variants. Here he dramatically crops his painting, boldly chopping the top section of the mirror out of his composition, to create a highly modernist aesthetic, which echoes the techniques of artists such as Matisse and Van Gogh.
Still Life of Anemones and Lemons is a highly vibrant and stylised image, which bears resemblance to the elegant interiors of his studio at 130 George Street in Edinburgh, where the walls were painted neutral shades of grey and white and the floorboards polished to a gleaming black, to enhance the airy, minimal decor. The present work demonstrating why Cadell is known as a master of colour and one of the forerunners of Scottish modern art.