Find out about Ben Nicholson. Why does he simplify still life forms and negative space and superimpose them on the Cornish landscape?
Artist Ben Nicholson 1894-1982
Nicholson was an influential English abstract painter. The son of the painter Sir William Nicholson, Ben Nicholson briefly attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1910–11, but was largely self-taught. He began to paint seriously in the 1920’s, first creating still life’s and landscapes in a conventionally realistic style.
Nicholson’s interest in abstract forms of art was influenced by his extensive travels and encounters with cubism and the modern sculptural work of Barbara Hepworth (who became his second wife) and Henry Moore.
In 1933 he and Hepworth joined the Paris-based Abstraction-Creation group, an artists’ association that advocated purely abstract art. He also met the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, under whose influence Nicholson’s work took on a greatly simplified geometry; typical of this period are his low reliefs of whitewashed circles and rectangles, such as White Relief (1937–38).
In the 1940s Nicholson returned to landscape and still-life themes, often painting simplified representations of still-life motifs within otherwise largely abstract compositions. In his later work he continued to shift between modes of abstraction and representation.
Ben Nicholson painted some of the best known abstract paintings in 20th Century British art. He and Barbara Hepworth moved to Cornwall during World War II and helped establish the important community of artists knows as the St Ives School. The area became famous for abstract painting and sculpture and had a major impact on modern art in Britain.
Sources: Britannica online, Wikipedia
Nicholson talked about abstract art as a freeing or liberating of form and colour in order to express an idea. In his writings he talks of playing with ‘planes’ to create an impression or illusion of space. He believed it was limiting to try and intellectualise abstract art. He said ‘ I think that far from being a limited expression, understood by a few, abstract art is a powerful, unlimited and universal language’.
I would say Nicholson simplified still life forms and negative space as part of his work to liberate form and colour and create space, by playing with planes. He did this to capture the imagination of the viewer. I expect he used the Cornish landscape in his work, as he was influenced by where he lived at that time and it must have inspired and influenced his work.
Source : Ben Nicholson ‘Notes on Abstract Art’, Art in Theory 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Edited by Charles Harrison & Paul Wood
