Burton Wasserman, April 2014
Dr. Burton Wasserman is a professor emeritus of Art at Rowan University, and a serious artist of long standing.
Painting: William Mason Brown, Fruit and Art Objects, ca. 1888. Oil on canvas, 22 1/16 x 16 3/16 in. Joseph E. Temple Fund.
At this time, in celebration of the latest annual Philadelphia Flower Show, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has installed an exhibition titled Trompe L’oeil to Modernism organized by Dr. Anna Marley, the chief curator of historic American art at the Academy’s Museum. It features an interesting selection of artworks from PAFA’s permanent collection and is well worth a visitor’s attention. The artworks on view date from highly representational 19th century still life compositions to fascinating examples by such distinguished 20th century masters as Stuart Davis and Horace Pippin.
The literal meaning in English for the French term trompe l’oeil is “to deceive the eye.” Its frequent use in the art world goes back many centuries. Specifically, the practice refers to an approach prized by many connoisseurs, and even artists themselves, for pictures that are so literally descriptive that spectators feel as though they are seeing actual subject matter—like a display of real flowers—rather than an approximation rendered with pigments.
Today, the practice of trompe l’oeil painting still fulfills a desire for demonstrating virtuosic skill in a way that places importance on an artist’s capacity for replicating the external appearance of assorted objects one encounters in the everyday world. Many people also continue to consider such facility the essential basis for assessing the true value of an artist’s talent. By contrast, there are those who find such excessive emphasis upon on visual trickery to be unduly slick and aesthetically vulgar. Instead, they consider the most important characteristics of a serious artist to be acute aesthetic sensitivity, imaginative resourcefulness in depth and an extraordinary degree of expressive power.
The oldest picture in the show is a view of some fruit and a pitcher, resting on top of a table. The contrast between the upright vessel and the round pieces of edible produce makes for a handsome arrangement of three-dimensional shapes situated in space. The composition was put together by William Mason Brown in 1888. Without question, it successfully conveys the flavor of that long-gone era.
A more recent painting, from 1934, by Preston Dickinson, titled Still Life, voices the delicate poetry given expression by some yellow and white flowers. Projecting a rather timeless presence, the total image provides a metaphorical statement, symbolizing several philosophical ideals as goodness, truth and justice. Even though such classical notions have largely gone into decline, the artwork perpetuates an idea that enjoyed great favor at an earlier time. Nevertheless, for some people in the here-and-now, there has been a modest revival of interest in the subject.
A picture by Julius Bloch, Tulips and Anemones, is rich with vivid color. However, unlike living natural blooms, which must inevitably wither and fade, his flowers, made of strokes of paint, may well last, unchanged forever after. This ability, to both survive the passage of time and the organic destiny of natural objects, gives his painting a degree of transcendence all its own.
Without question, this is an exhibition soundly invested with sheer visual delight. It offers visitors a wealth of experience with the distinctive sort of sensuous pleasure that art alone is able to provide.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Gallery 8, North Broad St. and Lenfest Plaza, Philadelphia. The closing date for the exhibition is August 20.
Trompe L’oeil to Modernism
P.O. Box 120 • New Hope, PA 18938 • Voice 800.354.8776 • Fax 215.862.9845 • www.icondv.com • www.facebook.com/icondv