Art & Perception

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Hanneke van Oosterhout recently showed this painting in earlier states. She got valuable suggestions from Rex, David, Colin, Jon, and Jewel as to how to improve the picture. Rather than respond in words, she has responded by modifying the painting itself. The latest version is shown above [click image to enlarge].

Is the painting finished?

Recently we looked at one of Hanneke van Oosterhout‘s finished still life paintings. There were a number of excellent critiques. The painting was already sold, however, so comments could have no further impact on that picture.

Now Hanneke is in the progress of making another still life. It is not yet finished, which means that your comments could help her make this painting better.

We can follow the painting’s development over several days. more… »

Posted by Karl Zipser

I made this painting in the summer of 1985, when I was sixteen years old. I painted it over the course of several mornings, standing on a dock in Woods Hole, Cape Cod. This is one of my first landscape paintings in oil.

I was able to do work like the above because I was part of a group of motivated students in the art class of Walter Bartman, a high school teacher in Bethesda, Maryland. more… »

Posted by Hanneke van Oosterhout

This still life is about 13 cm wide. I painted everything from life. I drew directly on the panel with charcoal, then pencil. Then I made an under painting in acrylic in one day. I made the over painting oil in two days, one day focusing on the berries, the other on the cup. I think this is a good picture. Please tell me what could be done better. Photographers, have you any insights for me?

Posted by Jon Conkey

I thought taking Karl up on posting a picture would be a good thing; I am firmly strapped down and ready. I thank you in advance for your honest and truthful opinion, please do not hold back.

I think that still-life would be of little interest as an art-form if it were a pure reflection of inanimate objects. And yet it is precisely the “still” aspect of this genre that makes it of special interest to painters. The artist has the time to study fine details, or subtleties of composition in a still-life that are more challenging when painting a portrait from life, or a cityscape on a crowded street.

Hanneke van Oosterhout was recently “trapped” in a smoky cafe for hours with nothing to do. Fortunately she had her sketch book with her and she made these two drawings from her imagination.

Something about these drawings pleased her. When she was able to return to her studio the next day, she attempted to construct a real still-life that combined aspects of the two drawings.

This still-life drawing is nice, but it lacks something that we can see in the imaginary drawings.

Comparing the real and imaginary drawings, we can easily see the important differences. The real still-life, like most of Hanneke’s still-life pictures, is a centered composition. It has a conventional feel of balance which is somewhat dull. The imaginary still-life drawings are both unbalanced, with the main weight of the objects skewed somewhat to the right side.

Another difference is evident in the perspective. The vessel in all three drawings is seen directly from the side. To achieve this constraint in the real still-life, the fruit on the table top is also seen from the side. But in the imaginary still-life, the table top and fruit are seen from a different perspective, from above. We seem to look down on the table top while looking at the vessel from the side. This merging of different perspective points lends an interesting quality to the imaginary drawings. When drawing more or less literally from a real still-life, this quality is lost.

Does the real still-life need to be drawn from only one viewpoint?

Are there other fundamental differences between real and imaginary drawings that I have missed?