Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

English
English German Czech

Image viewing

Work of art in the
Focus

Still life with white patisson (pumpkin)

Information

Year: 2007

Size: 120 x 160 cm

Type: C-Print

Opulent still life

In the semi-darkness of a room, an opulent still life is presented in the center of the picture on a rectangular, brightly shimmering marble table that runs into the depths and dominates the front width of the picture: a spherical rose bouquet of white-orange-yellow-pink filled blossoms in an amphora-like silver vase, half lit, a shimmering ivory patisson placed in front of it, to its left carefully placed light green and brownish pears on a round woven base, and a half-covered flat wicker basket placed behind the vase.

Black dominates

While the right side behind the two Thonet chairs standing at the table is defined by long, folded gray curtain panels and adjoining dark glass panes, the opposite left half of the room and the rear wall are submerged in dramatic black - broken only by a passageway into the brightly lit kitchen (with the round gong hanging above the door and a graphic by Sovak mounted on the wall), which is adjoined by another lightless room.

Everything is a little more complicated,
than it seems at first glance.

Sovak (with Anna Friedrichson), 2016, p. 19.

Insights into private environment

As if we were sitting at the table, we get glimpses of the artist's former private environment. The dining room, nestled between two glass fronts, now rendered in mirror image, usually provides a view of a lushly growing garden during the day. Now, in the darkened, intimate ambience, no distraction is possible here, so that the wonderful arrangement of garden-grown roses and favorite fruit, pears, staged by the artist himself at the time, receives fullest attention amid exquisite furniture. The ingenious light source coming in from the right outside the picture space effectively enchants the atmosphere, makes the blossoms and silver vase shimmer precious and the fruits reflect in the marble slab.

Everything stands still - forever

Everything seems to stand still in this oil painting reminiscent of a baroque still life with effectively used light dramaturgy. Time no longer seems to play a role in our contemplation either, as our eyes wander through the mysterious room lying in semi-darkness, in which individual elements stand out out of focus. Actually, in this beautiful, association-rich staging, the knowledge of the technical process hardly plays a role anymore, that the color print, produced in the classic analog process and digitally processed in the print shop (brightening of the flowers, for example), was intentionally greatly enlarged despite its small format in order to obtain the present pixelation. Too strong is the mysterious-melancholic aura of this work, which now reflects as a document of time a situation that no longer exists in reality and has disappeared forever.
Pravoslav Sovak Foundation

c/o lic.iur. Ralph Sigg
Obermattweg 12
CH-6052 Hergiswil, NW

info@sovak.ch

© Pravoslav Sovak Foundation

Website by aretis.ch
en_USEnglish
de_CHGerman cs_CZCzech en_USEnglish