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拍品專文
Afro's work of the 1950s reflects the newly-found freedom that the artist discovered in the non-figurative art of the Abstract Expressionists during his eight-month stay in America in 1950. Executed in 1952, Natura morta is an excellent example from this important period in Afro's career and illustrates his unique ability to absorb and regenerate the influences of the past with the more immediate influences of the present.
During his time in America the paintings of Pollock and Kline had particularly impressed Afro and encouraged him to establish a similar sense of freedom in his own work. However, unlike the Americans, Afro adopted a somewhat different aesthetic, searching for a purity of expression that would transform accident into meaning. Towards this end, Afro's compositions are carefully planned and organized with a particular emphasis placed on the need for a chromatic balance within the composition.
In Natura morta this chromatic balance is carefully established between a series of disassociated forms that reflect the influence of Arshile Gorky. However, unlike Gorky's work Natura morta maintains a figurative base that attempts to use form as an interpretation of the feelings that the objects inspire.
Throughout the evolution of Natura morta, from the initial preparatory drawings to the final abstract painting, a profile of a lamp remains visibly recognizable. Using this element as his starting point Afro has made light the basic means of expression in this work; not for what it represents, but as the key aesthetic. Using layers of colour to achieve transparency is an old Venetian technique, but here Afro has mimicked this technique by using tones and juxtaposed planes, instead of the traditional glazes. The transparence of the light renders his colours translucent and lifts them above the surface. It suspends the darker hues and the blacks in mid-air and allows the lighter tones to be superimposed on each other like glazes, creating an extraordinarily transcendent harmony in each part of the picture.
During his time in America the paintings of Pollock and Kline had particularly impressed Afro and encouraged him to establish a similar sense of freedom in his own work. However, unlike the Americans, Afro adopted a somewhat different aesthetic, searching for a purity of expression that would transform accident into meaning. Towards this end, Afro's compositions are carefully planned and organized with a particular emphasis placed on the need for a chromatic balance within the composition.
In Natura morta this chromatic balance is carefully established between a series of disassociated forms that reflect the influence of Arshile Gorky. However, unlike Gorky's work Natura morta maintains a figurative base that attempts to use form as an interpretation of the feelings that the objects inspire.
Throughout the evolution of Natura morta, from the initial preparatory drawings to the final abstract painting, a profile of a lamp remains visibly recognizable. Using this element as his starting point Afro has made light the basic means of expression in this work; not for what it represents, but as the key aesthetic. Using layers of colour to achieve transparency is an old Venetian technique, but here Afro has mimicked this technique by using tones and juxtaposed planes, instead of the traditional glazes. The transparence of the light renders his colours translucent and lifts them above the surface. It suspends the darker hues and the blacks in mid-air and allows the lighter tones to be superimposed on each other like glazes, creating an extraordinarily transcendent harmony in each part of the picture.