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Lot Essay
'I think these things are completely uninteresting. That's why I paint them. They convey nothing. There is not meaning to them at all, but they are a means to making a picture.' William Scott
Interior, 1958, was first exhibited in Zurich in 1959, but by the time that it was shown in Belfast in 1986, Scott's original title had been lost to the descriptive Blue Abstract. Scott's own title had positioned the painting at a time when the monumental still lifes from earlier in the 1950s had fused with abstraction to create a 'tangled' composition. In the present work, the large flat surface is recognisable as an expansive table top with legs clearly visible in the foreground. On the table, assembled pots, pans and bowls, hover precariously over the surface leading the viewer upward towards more layers of shape and form, culminating in a large light-flooded window at the top of the composition. In the development of his art, these objects are now no longer of any interest to the artist in providing the subject of a painting; instead, they provide the means for the act of painting. 'I will just go on painting without thinking either figure, still life or landscape and hope that they will contain all experience of the past' (see S. Whitfield, loc. cit.).
In 1958, Scott had been invited to exhibit at the British Pavillion at the XXIX Venice Biennale with fellow artists, Kenneth Armitage and Stanley William Hayter. In a recording for the British Council, he had described the development of his earlier still life paintings by the latter part of the 1950s, and that they had become geometrically divided: 'I wasn't conscious of doing that when I painted them. It was how I felt the picture ought to be. Sometimes there's a line down the middle ... but often there's a gap there, and all the objects cling to the edges of the painting, leaving an openness and an emptiness in the middle of the picture. Although I have an object, the emptiness has actually been made by the fact that I've used an empty object. I've used a wire basket ... if you half close your eyes, you will see it more clearly' (William Scott, script for an illustrated lecture, The British Council, 1961).
Alan Bowness has commented on the dynamic quality of the still life works of this period, that 'there is immense variety within the declared conventions. The general development is from balanced and static compositions towards an agitated profusion of forms and an extreme disequilibrium ... Often, as in Cezanne, a vertical accent divides the picture in two equal halves: it is established by a knife, or by the side of a pan, or by an alignment. Scott's sense of proportion and interval is highly developed, and the tensions between forms are always taut. Paint surfaces are rich and varied and voluptuous, and a kind of animal vigour seems to cling to the pictures. Tonal contrasts are emphasized: colouring tends to be monochromatic, with a preference for orange-red, blue and ochre-brown. At times Scott uses more or less the same composition for a different coloured picture. It is as if he wants to find out what happens when he does the picture in brown, not blue, or when the background tone is changed from light to dark. As before in the still life sequence of 1948-51, Scott pushes the subject into ambiguity' (William Scott Paintings, 1964, p. 11).
We are very grateful to The William Scott Foundation for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Interior, 1958, was first exhibited in Zurich in 1959, but by the time that it was shown in Belfast in 1986, Scott's original title had been lost to the descriptive Blue Abstract. Scott's own title had positioned the painting at a time when the monumental still lifes from earlier in the 1950s had fused with abstraction to create a 'tangled' composition. In the present work, the large flat surface is recognisable as an expansive table top with legs clearly visible in the foreground. On the table, assembled pots, pans and bowls, hover precariously over the surface leading the viewer upward towards more layers of shape and form, culminating in a large light-flooded window at the top of the composition. In the development of his art, these objects are now no longer of any interest to the artist in providing the subject of a painting; instead, they provide the means for the act of painting. 'I will just go on painting without thinking either figure, still life or landscape and hope that they will contain all experience of the past' (see S. Whitfield, loc. cit.).
In 1958, Scott had been invited to exhibit at the British Pavillion at the XXIX Venice Biennale with fellow artists, Kenneth Armitage and Stanley William Hayter. In a recording for the British Council, he had described the development of his earlier still life paintings by the latter part of the 1950s, and that they had become geometrically divided: 'I wasn't conscious of doing that when I painted them. It was how I felt the picture ought to be. Sometimes there's a line down the middle ... but often there's a gap there, and all the objects cling to the edges of the painting, leaving an openness and an emptiness in the middle of the picture. Although I have an object, the emptiness has actually been made by the fact that I've used an empty object. I've used a wire basket ... if you half close your eyes, you will see it more clearly' (William Scott, script for an illustrated lecture, The British Council, 1961).
Alan Bowness has commented on the dynamic quality of the still life works of this period, that 'there is immense variety within the declared conventions. The general development is from balanced and static compositions towards an agitated profusion of forms and an extreme disequilibrium ... Often, as in Cezanne, a vertical accent divides the picture in two equal halves: it is established by a knife, or by the side of a pan, or by an alignment. Scott's sense of proportion and interval is highly developed, and the tensions between forms are always taut. Paint surfaces are rich and varied and voluptuous, and a kind of animal vigour seems to cling to the pictures. Tonal contrasts are emphasized: colouring tends to be monochromatic, with a preference for orange-red, blue and ochre-brown. At times Scott uses more or less the same composition for a different coloured picture. It is as if he wants to find out what happens when he does the picture in brown, not blue, or when the background tone is changed from light to dark. As before in the still life sequence of 1948-51, Scott pushes the subject into ambiguity' (William Scott Paintings, 1964, p. 11).
We are very grateful to The William Scott Foundation for their assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.