1/26/2024 0 Comments Modern faceless portrait paintingAside from three other known surviving fully abstract works, only Bell’s textile designs also eschew representative forms. The abstract geometrical forms in this work are reminiscent of the mosaic-like representation of the domestic environment and the mottled effect of colour in earlier works such as Frederick and Jessie Etchells Painting 1912 (Tate T01277) and The Bedroom, Gordon Square 1912 (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide). The work represents a critical pivot in Bell’s career, when she was balancing theory against practice, form against signification, aesthetics against representation. They show the artist experimenting with abstraction and investigating through her practice theories of significant form propounded by her husband, the art critic Clive Bell, and her close friend and former partner, the painter and critic Roger Fry (see Clive Bell, Art, London 1914). Made in London in around 1914, this work is one of only four fully non-representational paintings within Bell’s oeuvre. There is evidence of pencil underdrawing on the canvas, which is wax-resin lined and remains unvarnished. ![]() There are no inscriptions to indicate the orientation of the work, but the direction of the brushstrokes and the slightly thicker paint layer towards the end of the rectilinear forms has been used to decide on this present orientation. Four of the blocks – vertically oriented rectangles in maroon, green, blue and grey-blue – are presented overlapping from the top to bottom left of the canvas, while a small red rectangle hovers in the mid-section and a lone pink square resides at the top right. It comprises six blocks of colour on a yellow ground. Abstract Painting is an oil and gouache painting on a medium-sized canvas by the British artist Vanessa Bell.
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