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拍品专文
Wayne Thiebaud has said that he strives to paint "as clearly as I can" (W. Thiebaud, quoted in, S. C. McGough, Thiebaud Selects Thiebaud: A Forty-Year Survey from Private Collections, exh. cat, Crocker Art Museum, 1996, p. 9). Thiebaud achieves this desired clarity of image in Glass of Wine and Olives, his 2002 oil on canvas, using stylistic choices that transform a prosaic subject into a scene of great visual interest. The artist renders this small vignette in the warm colors and sensuous brushstrokes so definitive of his practice, making Glass of Wine and Olives a primary exemplar of the artist's signature style. The olives and wine have been placed on a flat table with an uppermost edge indicated by one sweeping arch, a form repeated again in the shape of the sparkling, jewel-like olives, and echoed in the rim of the wine glass, giving the painting a sense of formal balance. The table is indicated only by two simple strips of color, creating a provoking juxtaposition of the highly worked figures against the mostly flat scenery. The lightly swirled impasto of the brushstrokes surrounding the glass and dish cause the figures to vibrate, popping out into the plane of the viewer with a shimmering patina that emphasizes the tactile nature of the wine and olives. Thiebaud's use of brightly colored thin lines to outline his objects lends further motion to the figures. This technique, which Thiebaud calls "halation," creates areas of "glows" (Ibid., 10), oscillations or halos between the form itself and the surrounding color. This use of non-representational color to bring about a unique, physiological perceptual experience follows in the Fauvist tradition of Van Gogh and Matisse in furthering the sense of vibration in the objects. The grey backdrop of these brilliant figures is marked by a distinct warmth, a trend echoed throughout the painting's undertones of lilac and deep rose.
Since the early 1960s, Thiebaud has approached the still life with an enthusiasm for texture, movement, shading, and striking composition, painting the ubiquitous foods that defined his American childhood. Of his food-based images, Thiebaud has said, "It was such a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be. It just seemed to be the most genuine thing I had done" (Ibid., 9). Thiebaud has an extraordinary ability to fix an object in the mind of the viewer. In place of the casual glance one would normally accord the common materials that make up daily life, he inspires his audience to really look and then to relish the experience of seeing new beauty in the ordinary.
Because of this use of images gleaned from daily life, Thiebaud has been affiliated with the Pop artists of the 1960s, a designation he has refuted time and again. Thiebaud finds his images not in popular media, but instead, pulls them from his mind's eye, using nostalgia and memory for inspiration rather than advertisements in magazines and on labels, where Pop artists often locate their subjects. Thiebaud's fascination with food can be seen in the intensity of his masterly brushwork, that nearly fetishizes the otherwise common objects. He bestows a unique attention upon an ordinary scene, with the beauty and detail imposed upon his objects typically found in an artist's focus on the curvature, for example, of a model's form. In the present work, Thiebaud focuses on the delicate slope of the wine glass' rim as well as on the rounded shapes of the perfectly oval olives, which can be compared to the undulations of the Odalisque's body, harking back to the the venerated female nude of artistic tradition. Thiebaud's Glass of Wine and Olives clearly conveys the bold, if assiduous hand of the artist, making manifest the precise composition and painterly technique indicative of the best of his oeuvre.
Since the early 1960s, Thiebaud has approached the still life with an enthusiasm for texture, movement, shading, and striking composition, painting the ubiquitous foods that defined his American childhood. Of his food-based images, Thiebaud has said, "It was such a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be. It just seemed to be the most genuine thing I had done" (Ibid., 9). Thiebaud has an extraordinary ability to fix an object in the mind of the viewer. In place of the casual glance one would normally accord the common materials that make up daily life, he inspires his audience to really look and then to relish the experience of seeing new beauty in the ordinary.
Because of this use of images gleaned from daily life, Thiebaud has been affiliated with the Pop artists of the 1960s, a designation he has refuted time and again. Thiebaud finds his images not in popular media, but instead, pulls them from his mind's eye, using nostalgia and memory for inspiration rather than advertisements in magazines and on labels, where Pop artists often locate their subjects. Thiebaud's fascination with food can be seen in the intensity of his masterly brushwork, that nearly fetishizes the otherwise common objects. He bestows a unique attention upon an ordinary scene, with the beauty and detail imposed upon his objects typically found in an artist's focus on the curvature, for example, of a model's form. In the present work, Thiebaud focuses on the delicate slope of the wine glass' rim as well as on the rounded shapes of the perfectly oval olives, which can be compared to the undulations of the Odalisque's body, harking back to the the venerated female nude of artistic tradition. Thiebaud's Glass of Wine and Olives clearly conveys the bold, if assiduous hand of the artist, making manifest the precise composition and painterly technique indicative of the best of his oeuvre.