PIETER LASTMAN

In the throngs of a crowd, as the heat of a burning altar warms their faces, two friends decide which one of them is to die and which is to live. Orestes and Pylades, so goes the ancient Greek tale, had travelled to Tauris to steal the statue of Artemis, but were found out and, as was custom for any unwanted visitor, sentenced to death at the altar. Yet, taking pity on the friends, the priestess of the temple allowed them to chose between them who was to be sacrificed for the other. Both fought for their own death, to save their friend and, in the end, neither were killed as the priestess of the temple was none other than Orestes long lost sister Iphigenia. Lastman was the first artist to paint this story, and for all of it’s complications, his rendering is succinct and effective. He cuts through much of the contextual difficulty of the story to find the heart of the fable - one of sacrifice, and the platonic love between friends and siblings. 

LOUISE NEVELSON

Louise Nevelson’s life was to be a tale of 20th Century immigration, steady progress through social classes, and a domestic life in leafy Mount Vernon, if it were not undone by her bravery and commitment to art. Emigrating from Ukraine as a child to the United States, and marrying into a wealthy family in her early 20s, she was expected to be a socialite wife and home-maker, educated on culture but not so bold as to assume she could create it herself. “Within that circle you could know Beethoven”, she said, “but god forbid you were Beethoven.” Yet she was gifted in a wide field of art, and had longed to be an artist since she was a child so, in 1930, at the age of 31, she separated from her husband, accepting no financial support, sold the diamond bracelet he had once given her as a gift, and returned to Europe alone to absorb the artistic culture of the day. Nevelson would go on to redefine American sculpture, but this small sketch on paper was painted during her time in Europe, its loose lines and relaxed feeling clearly informed by Matisse and Picasso. It is the fledgling work of an artist striking out on their own, still awaiting the medium that will call them, but confident in the strength of their character, and the necessity to speak out.

BARNETT NEWMAN

Forms, shapes, discernible meaning: all of these got in the way of Barnett Newman’s mission. He wanted to create art that so engulfed the viewer, was so inescapable in scale and drama that, without distraction, it tapped into a universal understanding. It was only in this way, he thought, that art could approach the sublime, and the aesthetic could elevate the human spirit to a place of purity. Day One is monumental in size while being close to as simple as possible. Save for the two thin lines of slightly contrasting hues, the work is a color-field painting of orange that seems to burst into your brain with abandon. It is, in fact, those two lines of contrasting hue that give the work its power. Newman called them zips, and their purpose is to animate and elevate the central colour - they are not their for beauty but for utility, to uplift and embolden the reach of a single colour towards that final goal of sublimity.