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PRESS RELEASE
Beyond the Surface: the Barber Probes Mysteries of Space
The mysteries of space – and how to represent it on paper or canvas – are explored in the exhibition Space versus Surface: Illusionism and Abstraction in Art, currently running at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts from Friday, January 28.
Maurice Denis once said: “Remember that a picture – before being a war horse, a nude woman or some anecdote – is essentially a plane surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order”.
Based on a selection of works from the Barber’s collection by the likes of Poussin, Rossetti, Whistler, Gauguin and Howard Hodgkin, the display examines how, since time immemorial, artists have grappled with the dilemma of how to depict the ‘real’, three-dimensional world around them on the two-dimensional picture surface.
Over the centuries, painters have used a variety of techniques and tricks – such as perspective, colour, composition and arrangement of shapes in the picture – to create an illusion of reality. Then, in the late 19th and early 20th century, modern artists took further steps to move painting away from simply trying to reproduce the outside world faithfully and ‘naturalistically’. Impressionists began to use daubs of paint to create a sensory ‘impression’ of light and how it coloured the world, while Fauves and Cubists chose to look at different elements of the external world such as colour and multiple viewpoints.
Abstract art developed from around 1910 with the work of Kandinsky and Mondrian, who believed painting could provoke thoughts and feelings independently of the objects in the ‘real world’, while later artists became convinced that art should not only depict a scene or tell a story, but engage the eye and mind to enjoy its raw materials – line, form, colour, pattern and even brushwork.
“People divide art into the sort that depicts objects and the sort that doesn’t,” said Barber Director Richard Verdi. “The second type is called ‘abstract art’ and is concerned with surface composition, colour, and formal elements, while the first type is perceived as purely about the illusionistic representation of the object.
”That is so far from the truth; art that depicts objects can also be seen as abstract. Although it might not have been mentioned before 1910, these concepts have always been recognised – artists just didn’t talk about them.”
Space versus Surface: Illusionism and Abstraction in Art runs from Friday 28 January to 2 May 2005. It is accompanied by a series of three lectures.
| For further information, please contact Andrew Davies, Barber Press and Marketing Officer, on 0121 414 2946 or andrewdavies@barber.org.uk |