Feasting on Art

Adorning the cloaks and garments of royalty, the colour purple was often called imperial purple due to the close association. The word purple is a derivative of the original Greek porphura, the name of the Tyrian purple dye of antiquity extracted from a spiny snail. The pigment was extremely expensive to produce and only the very wealthy could afford clothes dyed the colour of grapes and plums. As a secondary colour, purple is wedged between red and blue on the colour wheel. The tones leaning towards the blue side of the spectrum were desired due to their association with the rare blue pigment favoured by artists and craftsmen.

Benjamin Roberts, Still life of plums with a cabbage white, 1862
oil on board, 16 x 21.5 cm, Private collection

Read the rest of this entry »

The colour blue – reserved for the robes of the holiest of mothers – was one of the rarest and most expensive pigments in use during the Renaissance. For the depiction of Virgin Mary, only ultramarine was used due to its price and elusiveness as it is was found only in Asia and is presently mined in only a handful of places around the world. The name ultramarine was derived from the Italian oltramarion meaning ‘from beyond the sea’ because it was imported from Asia. Made from ground lapis lazuli, the pigment yielded a brilliant hue verging on the violet side rather than the greenish tint commonly found in the substitute colour, azurite.

Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Cheese, 1944
oil on canvas, Private collection

Read the rest of this entry »

Green is one of the most abundant colors; there are greens in every imaginable shade and tone throughout the world’s natural landscapes. From green algae to rainforest canopies, green permeates and dominates in its diversity. Individual greens are often blurred as countless plants merge into a color field, many overlapping green leaves forming the density of forests or millions of blades blending to become a sports field’s smooth surface. The simultaneous layering and highlighting that is seen in nature can be compared to the artwork of Jonathan Monk, who’s layering of meaning and medium fuse together history, critique, and technique. Monk’s 2002 work, Green with hidden Noise combines a single solid swath of green painted roughly on a white wall with a slide projection focused directly atop this patch of color. The circular projection itself appears to depict a green scene: a forest of trees? The composition is green on green.

Jonathan Monk, Green with hidden Noise, 2002,
slide installation and wall painting, image courtesy Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe and Berlin

Read the rest of this entry »

When considering the colour green, there are a number of connotations that are promptly conjured; green is the colour of money and wealth, through which one can become ‘green with jealously.’ Likewise, it is the colour of nature, growth, and life and one can have a ‘green thumb.’ It is within the secret green porcelain of China, called mi se meaning ‘mysterious colour’, that the two connotations of the colour intersect. Mi se was produced in the 9th and 10th centuries in China and was reserved for only the Emperor to see – let alone use – and the porcelain was so secretive that first verified example was not discovered until 1987. The porcelain was more valuable than gold and silver although its popularity ‘stemmed partly from the Chinese tendency to mythologise art, in order to appreciate it better (1).’ The green colour of mi se was derived from a small amount of iron in the glaze and the porcelain itself was obtained from nature. Mi se ‘comes from the mountains – from their earth and their forests. The wood was used for firing…and the clay was used for the body of the porcelain. But the two together – as wood ash and kaolin – were also used for the glaze that makes up its delicate skin and jade-like colour (2).’ This green porcelain of the earth represented the pureness of nature yet was an elusive commodity that embodied the wealth and power of the Chinese elite.

Lin Fengmian, Still Life, 1988
ink and colour on paper, 68.3 x 68.3 cm, Private collection

Read the rest of this entry »

Subtleties of taste, texture and tone – a simple meditation on the infinite. Made of rice and pollen meticulously mounded across the floor, Wolfgang Laib’s 2007 work, Ohne Zeit – ohne Ort – ohne Körper, acts as an ephemeral testimony to existence in its rawest forms. Amidst the grid work of rice mountains, the glowing yellow of three central pyramidal piles is strikingly potent – a concentration of hazelnut pollen.

Wolfgang Laib, Ohne Zeit – ohne Ort – ohne Körper (detail), 2007,
piles of rice, 3 piles of hazelnut pollen, 470 x 410cm, image courtesy Galerie Thaddeus Ropac

Read the rest of this entry »