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拍品專文
In 1984 Hodgkin represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and a year later won the Turner Prize for his work A Small Thing But My Own. The triumph of these achievements imbued within the artist a new-found confidence within his work, which in turn brought sureness to his brushstrokes and belief in the vibrancy of his colours. Fire in Venice is an outstanding demonstration of the artist's unique vocabulary of abstraction; its powerfully evocative title and glorious outburst of glowing colour and spontaneous rhythm serve as a true testament to the artist’s skill.
Hodgkin was to become captivated with the place and would return to Venice in the 1990s to paint a further sixteen works. Hodgkin toyed with the notions of representation, fully aware that paint could not substitute or account for an experience that cannot be recaptured, although saw that one must attempt in some way to reincarnate a moment already past. Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals the key to success, he states, ‘He [the artist] has to create a pictorial language capable of balancing on that particular knife edge, a language that would enable him to create pictures that declare their dual status both as painted memories and as images of the imperfect nature of all remembrance' (A. Graham-Dixon, Howard Hodgkin, London, 2001, p. 61). Hodgkin achieves this balance and instead of trying to capture the appearance of the place illustrates Venice as a set of ideas, feelings and attitudes, which can be seen as a more truthful rendering of his time there. There is a reference to Turner in all of his Venice works, his use of explosive light and vibrant colour capturing the broken water reflections, which pay homage to the Nineteenth Century master’s work. Graham-Dixon notes, however, that the effect of Hodgkin’s abstracted aesthetic differs from Turner’s watery atmospheric scenes, he states, ‘His Venice is a place where things are seen, dimly, through veils of dense obscuring atmosphere, where objects metamorphose into barely perceptible apparitions’ (op. cit., p. 62).
Fire in Venice seems to counter the aqueousness of the previous depictions, replacing the watery world of Venice with one swallowed by flames. The rich red and orange tones undulate across the canvas, the black and green scuppered paint emerge from underneath, enhancing this notion of burning. The glow and vitality of the saturated colours gives a heady vision of fire. This is not deemed as threatening for there is a radiance that emanates from the painting simulating emotions of happiness and warmth. Hodgkin avoids literal representation, instead using the subject matter as a starting point, from which he abstracts his forms, leaving us with visions of warm summer evenings in Venice. This technique lends itself to these imaginings, the rich sensuous reds evoking memories of the place. This notion is heightened by the three year time frame in which the work was painted. As with so many of his greatest works of this period, this painting became a labour of love, with time and memory central to its creation. This is particularly visible in Fire in Venice with the layering of colour, which displays flashes and glimpses of pigment from previous states, adding a greater substance and weightiness to its entity.
The intensity of colour in Fire in Venice is heightened by his framing devices. On the one hand, the paint appears to have broken the bounds of the picture surface, covering the wooden frame and yet, within that central rectangle, Hodgkin has introduced another framing device, which seems then to once again confine the work within the parameters of traditional framing. This bleeding in and out of the frame recalls the Indian manuscript illustrations that Hodgkin collected, of which a selection was exhibited at the Ashmolean, Oxford in 2010 in the show Royal Elephants from Mughal India, Paintings & drawings from the collection of Howard Hodgkin. Just as some of those illustrators introduced painted frames to their works and allowed the figures to breach their confines, so Hodgkin also allows an intriguing interplay between frame and motif, resulting in a total vision, a total picture surface. In this way, he concentrates the effects of the colours at the centre while also allowing the red of the frame to add another layer of information to the picture, serving to convey a sense of emotional vibration relating to the scene and to the artist's own memories. This framing technique allows Hodgkin to manipulate the vivid colours which are the driving force in his evocative, poetic visions. Hodgkin's sumptuous, colour-drenched visions totter between the realms of figuration and abstraction to arouse sensations and memories through a unique idiom that separates him apart from the various artistic movements that have ensued parallel to him during his long career, ensuring that he is both modern and timeless.
Hodgkin was to become captivated with the place and would return to Venice in the 1990s to paint a further sixteen works. Hodgkin toyed with the notions of representation, fully aware that paint could not substitute or account for an experience that cannot be recaptured, although saw that one must attempt in some way to reincarnate a moment already past. Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals the key to success, he states, ‘He [the artist] has to create a pictorial language capable of balancing on that particular knife edge, a language that would enable him to create pictures that declare their dual status both as painted memories and as images of the imperfect nature of all remembrance' (A. Graham-Dixon, Howard Hodgkin, London, 2001, p. 61). Hodgkin achieves this balance and instead of trying to capture the appearance of the place illustrates Venice as a set of ideas, feelings and attitudes, which can be seen as a more truthful rendering of his time there. There is a reference to Turner in all of his Venice works, his use of explosive light and vibrant colour capturing the broken water reflections, which pay homage to the Nineteenth Century master’s work. Graham-Dixon notes, however, that the effect of Hodgkin’s abstracted aesthetic differs from Turner’s watery atmospheric scenes, he states, ‘His Venice is a place where things are seen, dimly, through veils of dense obscuring atmosphere, where objects metamorphose into barely perceptible apparitions’ (op. cit., p. 62).
Fire in Venice seems to counter the aqueousness of the previous depictions, replacing the watery world of Venice with one swallowed by flames. The rich red and orange tones undulate across the canvas, the black and green scuppered paint emerge from underneath, enhancing this notion of burning. The glow and vitality of the saturated colours gives a heady vision of fire. This is not deemed as threatening for there is a radiance that emanates from the painting simulating emotions of happiness and warmth. Hodgkin avoids literal representation, instead using the subject matter as a starting point, from which he abstracts his forms, leaving us with visions of warm summer evenings in Venice. This technique lends itself to these imaginings, the rich sensuous reds evoking memories of the place. This notion is heightened by the three year time frame in which the work was painted. As with so many of his greatest works of this period, this painting became a labour of love, with time and memory central to its creation. This is particularly visible in Fire in Venice with the layering of colour, which displays flashes and glimpses of pigment from previous states, adding a greater substance and weightiness to its entity.
The intensity of colour in Fire in Venice is heightened by his framing devices. On the one hand, the paint appears to have broken the bounds of the picture surface, covering the wooden frame and yet, within that central rectangle, Hodgkin has introduced another framing device, which seems then to once again confine the work within the parameters of traditional framing. This bleeding in and out of the frame recalls the Indian manuscript illustrations that Hodgkin collected, of which a selection was exhibited at the Ashmolean, Oxford in 2010 in the show Royal Elephants from Mughal India, Paintings & drawings from the collection of Howard Hodgkin. Just as some of those illustrators introduced painted frames to their works and allowed the figures to breach their confines, so Hodgkin also allows an intriguing interplay between frame and motif, resulting in a total vision, a total picture surface. In this way, he concentrates the effects of the colours at the centre while also allowing the red of the frame to add another layer of information to the picture, serving to convey a sense of emotional vibration relating to the scene and to the artist's own memories. This framing technique allows Hodgkin to manipulate the vivid colours which are the driving force in his evocative, poetic visions. Hodgkin's sumptuous, colour-drenched visions totter between the realms of figuration and abstraction to arouse sensations and memories through a unique idiom that separates him apart from the various artistic movements that have ensued parallel to him during his long career, ensuring that he is both modern and timeless.