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拍品專文
The present work was executed at a time when Richards was preoccupied in his work with the theme of the Rape of the Sabines. The story, told in Livy and Plutarch, tells of the abduction of the women of the Sabine tribe by Romans under the instuction of Romulus.
Mel Gooding comments, 'He made hundreds of drawings on the theme, a body of superbly accomplished monoprints and several paintings, diverse in scale and complexity. Together they constitute a major body of work, quite different in mode but thematically continuous not only with the early and late wartime work, but at the deepest level with certain of the surrealist drawings and constructions of the mid to late 1930s. In the Sabine pictures Richards in a characteristically veiled manner, continued to treat the most profound aspects of the relation of nature to culture, of art to life, drawing with great aplomb and with a poetic elegance and wit on the material of classical European myth and its history in art. There is a great diversity of manner in Richards Rape paintings, but the drawings are consistently quick and give no impression of premeditation. The vital lyrical grace and virtuousity with which they represent the body in action and ecstasy is quite unlike anything in even the most accomplished British art of the time' (see Ceri Richards, Moffat, 2002, pp. 83-5).
Mel Gooding comments, 'He made hundreds of drawings on the theme, a body of superbly accomplished monoprints and several paintings, diverse in scale and complexity. Together they constitute a major body of work, quite different in mode but thematically continuous not only with the early and late wartime work, but at the deepest level with certain of the surrealist drawings and constructions of the mid to late 1930s. In the Sabine pictures Richards in a characteristically veiled manner, continued to treat the most profound aspects of the relation of nature to culture, of art to life, drawing with great aplomb and with a poetic elegance and wit on the material of classical European myth and its history in art. There is a great diversity of manner in Richards Rape paintings, but the drawings are consistently quick and give no impression of premeditation. The vital lyrical grace and virtuousity with which they represent the body in action and ecstasy is quite unlike anything in even the most accomplished British art of the time' (see Ceri Richards, Moffat, 2002, pp. 83-5).