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拍品专文
A well-known caricaturist who popularised Bali as a travelling destination for the Western world through his renowned book, Island of Bali, the painting of Covarrubias is very often deceptively simplistic with his emphasis of lines and uncomplicated composition. By training, a caricaturist is to tell the most with the simplest composition, this quality is most apparent with Covarrubias' depiction of the profiles of the Balinese girls.
By comparison the present lot is a lavish, extravagant visual treat of intricacies and colours for a work of Covarrubias, without substituting the inherent qualities of his works which are the shape, the form and the clearly outlined. This style of the artist ensured that forms were both large and simplified and that they were coloured in strong hues that varied little as evidenced by the present lot.
The influence of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) is apparent in the present lot, bringing to mind is Rousseau's The Forest at Sunset, 1910. Just like Rousseau's 1910 masterpiece which some critics hailed it as 'one of art history's most imaginative and magical jungle', Covarrubias' Aves del Paraiso is simplistic but has clearly marked perspectives, each one clearly defined through a variety of forms and colours. The way Covarrubias painted the tropical vegetation is typically rudimentary but the accurate depiction in fine detail of leaves and trunks revealed an awareness of colours and their harmony and of the softening and graduation of shade. With the subtle placement of 3 focal points, namely the birds on the upper left corner, the tree branch which is of a highly decorative shape and the bird of paradise in striking orange hues on the lower left corner, the artist guides our eye into the canvas, giving the work a considerable degree of real perspective.
Simple but highly evocative and enigmatic, this is yet another characteristic shared between Rousseau and Covarrubias. Clearly, the contexts in which both were painted were completely different and Rousseau's inspiration was affirmed by the artist's own anthropological interest of exotic cultures evidenced by the countless drawings illustrated in Island of Bali. The illustrations which are studies of the various art forms of the Balinese community demonstrated a deep understanding of the symbolic and stylistic significance of the multiple icons of myriad origins, more importantly revealing the artist's preoccupation with the myth, the magic and the legendary.
It is not surprising that this image of the tropical forest acquired a fantastic and almost dreamlike quality, demonstrating the importance of the colours and patterned, decorative elements and most important of all, the pre-eminence of the fantastic over the real.
By comparison the present lot is a lavish, extravagant visual treat of intricacies and colours for a work of Covarrubias, without substituting the inherent qualities of his works which are the shape, the form and the clearly outlined. This style of the artist ensured that forms were both large and simplified and that they were coloured in strong hues that varied little as evidenced by the present lot.
The influence of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) is apparent in the present lot, bringing to mind is Rousseau's The Forest at Sunset, 1910. Just like Rousseau's 1910 masterpiece which some critics hailed it as 'one of art history's most imaginative and magical jungle', Covarrubias' Aves del Paraiso is simplistic but has clearly marked perspectives, each one clearly defined through a variety of forms and colours. The way Covarrubias painted the tropical vegetation is typically rudimentary but the accurate depiction in fine detail of leaves and trunks revealed an awareness of colours and their harmony and of the softening and graduation of shade. With the subtle placement of 3 focal points, namely the birds on the upper left corner, the tree branch which is of a highly decorative shape and the bird of paradise in striking orange hues on the lower left corner, the artist guides our eye into the canvas, giving the work a considerable degree of real perspective.
Simple but highly evocative and enigmatic, this is yet another characteristic shared between Rousseau and Covarrubias. Clearly, the contexts in which both were painted were completely different and Rousseau's inspiration was affirmed by the artist's own anthropological interest of exotic cultures evidenced by the countless drawings illustrated in Island of Bali. The illustrations which are studies of the various art forms of the Balinese community demonstrated a deep understanding of the symbolic and stylistic significance of the multiple icons of myriad origins, more importantly revealing the artist's preoccupation with the myth, the magic and the legendary.
It is not surprising that this image of the tropical forest acquired a fantastic and almost dreamlike quality, demonstrating the importance of the colours and patterned, decorative elements and most important of all, the pre-eminence of the fantastic over the real.