拍品專文
RELATED LITERATURE:
W. Born, Still-Life Painting in America, New York, 1947
W.H. Gerdts, Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life (1801-1939), Columbia, Missouri, 1981
W.H. Gerdts and R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting, New York, 1971
Painted at the height of his artistic career in 1880, Bric-a-Brac Still Life represents the pinnacle of George Henry Hall's still-life oeuvre. Though Hall's interest in exotic subjects was mostly confined to his genre pictures, here he takes on a challenging arrangement of objects on a large scale as a demonstration of his technical skill. His Bric-a-Brac Still Life of Damascus, Seville and Rome (1880), a similar composition to this painting, was extremely well received when it was shown in 1881 at the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition. At the time Hall's still lifes were held up as a model for aspiring artists.
During his lifetime Hall was among the most influential American still-life painters. Elected to membership in the National Academy in 1868, Hall also kept a studio in the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building--home of such figures as Winslow Homer and William Merritt Chase. An inveterate traveler, Hall was student of the European schools including Düsseldorf where he and Eastman Johnson studied together in 1849.
Bric-a-Brac Still Life combines Hall's interests in intricate textures and brilliant coloristic arrangements. As Wolfgang Born wrote of a similar work: "Hall shares the tonal attitudes of his contemporaries. In this tonal composition Chiaroscuro prevails, serving to fuse the parts into a picturesque visual experience." (Still-Life Painting in America, p. 26) Hall was known for his eclectic juxtapositions of objects, which satisfied his fascination with variety and beauty. In Hall's Raspberries in a Gauntlet of 1868, for example, the artist filled a steel gauntlet with ripe berries and then depicted it in nature, presumably as an intriguing compositional contrast.
Hall executed only a handful of works that approach this scale and complexity. The artist's best known and most numerous compositions of this period are significantly smaller, more conservative depictions of single fruits and flower arrangements which demonstrate his meticulous realism and attention to detail. By virtue of its scale, however, Bric-a-Brac Still Life emphasizes the artist's romantic vision more than his meticulousness. As Born observed, "Hall does everything to obliterate the geometrical character of arrangement and to stress subjectivity." (Still-Life Painting in America, p. 26) Nowhere is this nostalgic subjectivity more evident than in Bric-a-Brac Still Life with its soft fabrics and diffuse light.
W. Born, Still-Life Painting in America, New York, 1947
W.H. Gerdts, Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life (1801-1939), Columbia, Missouri, 1981
W.H. Gerdts and R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting, New York, 1971
Painted at the height of his artistic career in 1880, Bric-a-Brac Still Life represents the pinnacle of George Henry Hall's still-life oeuvre. Though Hall's interest in exotic subjects was mostly confined to his genre pictures, here he takes on a challenging arrangement of objects on a large scale as a demonstration of his technical skill. His Bric-a-Brac Still Life of Damascus, Seville and Rome (1880), a similar composition to this painting, was extremely well received when it was shown in 1881 at the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition. At the time Hall's still lifes were held up as a model for aspiring artists.
During his lifetime Hall was among the most influential American still-life painters. Elected to membership in the National Academy in 1868, Hall also kept a studio in the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building--home of such figures as Winslow Homer and William Merritt Chase. An inveterate traveler, Hall was student of the European schools including Düsseldorf where he and Eastman Johnson studied together in 1849.
Bric-a-Brac Still Life combines Hall's interests in intricate textures and brilliant coloristic arrangements. As Wolfgang Born wrote of a similar work: "Hall shares the tonal attitudes of his contemporaries. In this tonal composition Chiaroscuro prevails, serving to fuse the parts into a picturesque visual experience." (Still-Life Painting in America, p. 26) Hall was known for his eclectic juxtapositions of objects, which satisfied his fascination with variety and beauty. In Hall's Raspberries in a Gauntlet of 1868, for example, the artist filled a steel gauntlet with ripe berries and then depicted it in nature, presumably as an intriguing compositional contrast.
Hall executed only a handful of works that approach this scale and complexity. The artist's best known and most numerous compositions of this period are significantly smaller, more conservative depictions of single fruits and flower arrangements which demonstrate his meticulous realism and attention to detail. By virtue of its scale, however, Bric-a-Brac Still Life emphasizes the artist's romantic vision more than his meticulousness. As Born observed, "Hall does everything to obliterate the geometrical character of arrangement and to stress subjectivity." (Still-Life Painting in America, p. 26) Nowhere is this nostalgic subjectivity more evident than in Bric-a-Brac Still Life with its soft fabrics and diffuse light.