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Lot Essay
Vaughan reduces the composition of this eminently compact work to absolute essentials: a nude male figure perched on the edge of an open, airy landscape. In 1960 Vaughan had visited Greece and was deeply impressed by the ancient statuary that he encountered there. Something of the solitary, still and compact quality of Classical figures increasingly filtered through to his brand of male nude painting. The overwhelming quality of separation and seclusion communicated here echoes Vaughan's own sense of emotional isolation from the world around him and, though it hardly needs to be said, something of the human condition.
The unidentified figure is presented with his back to the viewer, gazing out into an azure Aegean landscape. The economical but vital gesture possesses an enigmatic quality. He is placed centrally and is formally anchored to the bottom edge of the picture plane. Nevertheless he gently raises his arm towards the left side of the canvas as if seeking further permanence and stability.
Vaughan's application of oil paint is generous and tactile and acts as an equivalent, rather than a mere illustration, of the subject's flesh. The late and eminent Professor John Ball, a friend of the artist and collector of his work said, 'Vaughan felt a strong and inner necessity to make paintings which expressed his feelings about the human body and what happens to it when seen, remembered or imagined in space. He also felt something like love for the media of oil paint, which grew as he became more of a virtuoso' (John Ball in Conversation with Nicholas Goodison: Keith Vaughan, Paintings and Drawings, 2007).
In a letter to E. M. Forster, written not long after he painted this picture, Vaughan explained how he resolved one of the central problems facing the painter of the male nude and indicated how he overcame it: 'If one uses the image of the human figure one must start by making it erotic - because that's the first thing that strikes you about it. But the erotic image soon ceases to be human and you paint the eroticism out. You don't just castrate it with mock decencies but transpose it into the flat plastic language of form and colour which has its own needs and limitations' (Keith Vaughan to E. M. Forster, 18 April 1962).
G.H.
The unidentified figure is presented with his back to the viewer, gazing out into an azure Aegean landscape. The economical but vital gesture possesses an enigmatic quality. He is placed centrally and is formally anchored to the bottom edge of the picture plane. Nevertheless he gently raises his arm towards the left side of the canvas as if seeking further permanence and stability.
Vaughan's application of oil paint is generous and tactile and acts as an equivalent, rather than a mere illustration, of the subject's flesh. The late and eminent Professor John Ball, a friend of the artist and collector of his work said, 'Vaughan felt a strong and inner necessity to make paintings which expressed his feelings about the human body and what happens to it when seen, remembered or imagined in space. He also felt something like love for the media of oil paint, which grew as he became more of a virtuoso' (John Ball in Conversation with Nicholas Goodison: Keith Vaughan, Paintings and Drawings, 2007).
In a letter to E. M. Forster, written not long after he painted this picture, Vaughan explained how he resolved one of the central problems facing the painter of the male nude and indicated how he overcame it: 'If one uses the image of the human figure one must start by making it erotic - because that's the first thing that strikes you about it. But the erotic image soon ceases to be human and you paint the eroticism out. You don't just castrate it with mock decencies but transpose it into the flat plastic language of form and colour which has its own needs and limitations' (Keith Vaughan to E. M. Forster, 18 April 1962).
G.H.