Still Life with Spring Flowers Sylvia Levine
The life in this picture starts with a vivid sky-blue, indigo, jade and white tablecloth, surging upwards from the lower part of the fairly small, almost square, board, to meet its partner – the terracotta, ochre and brown wash of paint which flows downwards from the top. The surface is alive with life: scrubbed, splashed, prodded with thumb-prints, inscribed with the occasional line. I have described the tablecloth; but it matters not what these veils of colour represent. They are painterly surfaces on a board which is unashamedly rough round the edges. The colours inhabit the picture – and it also seems they are also about to spread outwards, flow over the edges, spread beyond the frame. The coloured surface appears to have a sentience of its own.
This might seem somewhat over-ambitious as a description of Levine’s work. She is too often seen ‘simply’ as an ‘outsider’ artist. I am inclined to believe, however, that this was a convenient persona for a vital, intense, poetic woman to adopt. In some ways, it placed her outside proper analysis, allowed her a degree of privacy which was necessary to her art. But, it cannot be a coincidence that the 1950s to the ‘80s were rich with images of Abstract Expressionist and Colour Field artists. Saturated colour, gestural paint: pictures which breathe with personality, infused with a peculiar sense of immanence, filled with the stuff of lightness and darkness. And, closer to home, Levine’s old teacher, Paul Feiler, from the late 1960s until his death in 2013, was preoccupied with painting visions of emerging, geometric layers of graduated colour, conjuring the ‘elusive space’ of what were sometimes described as ‘shrine paintings’ – and certainly demanding of the viewer a period of concentrated contemplation, meditation. Levine’s handling of colour has nothing of the Sublime ambition of some of these artists; and nothing of the cool, geometric serenity of Feiler’s work. But they do have an intense, poetic life where the handling of colour is very sophisticated and deeply engaging.
And – bringing these hectic veils of colour together – at the heart of the picture are the flowers: a terracotta pot filled with splashes of yellow and a decorated white jug, infused with blue reflections from the tablecloth, holding a froth of purple. The yellow is interesting: surely, an unusual hyacinth, one of the relatively few yellow varieties – perhaps even the fine, ‘City of Haarlem’ introduced as early as 1893 (I am inclined to believe that Levine was deeply interested and knowledgeable about the habit and history of plants – her flowers are always individuals!)? The purple is more perplexing. Violet, purple and blue Saintpaulias – which flower indoors throughout the year – spring to mind. But, Levine’s flowers are displayed in a jug; they must have been plucked from the garden. I am persuaded that they are richly-coloured indigo, violet, blue and purple violas, which light up the early spring days. The purple and gold colours of these flowers are, of course, primary complementaries and they bring everything together, focus attention, illuminate the whole composition. This is not a serene flower picture. It is a hectic explosion of light and life.
30.3cms x 27cms
50cms x 48cms