Just Glorious

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on July 21, 2013 at 9:57am

Curator’s Comment:

 

Just Glorious breaks many of the golden rules of academic painting, but gets it right.  The explosion of full spectrum warm and cool hues harmonizes despite the lack of a thematic color palette. The centralized focal point, instead of becoming too static or predictable, anchors and stabilizes the myriad of radiating lines moving out from the center of the composition.   I find it interesting that the petals flatten as they move towards the corners of the picture plane, and focus into a more modeled value pattern in the middle. The tiny amount of negative space in the upper corners is anticipated at the bottom, to round out the radial symmetry; but again the viewer is foiled by the slight visual shift of the flower. Likely the hot saturated pink color in the tips of the blue petals offers a counterbalance, just as the cooler blue green and violet tints surface on the left side of the subject. The scale indicated suggests the piece would have an even more dynamic presence as a physical object- thanks for sharing it.