Sunday, January 17, 2010

Bellerophon

A lovely little print by Stephen Fabian, entitled Bellerophon.

The original painting is in full color, the print is monotone.

The comment this picture received from oeconomist nicely described its quality, so I quote here with appreciation:

"So much of the time, as here, Fabian's work looks to me perfectly graceful. Whatever struggle may have gone into its production, nothing that remains seems in any way awkward. The horse and the woman convey an impression of proper occupation of space; the horse flies but, given that, its body and that of its rider distribute their mass plausibly in response to the pull of gravity. The buildings are abstracted enough not to draw undue attention, but tell the viewer of a whole city."

3 comments:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

So much of the time, as here, Fabian's work looks to me perfectly graceful. Whatever struggle may have gone into its production, nothing that remains seems in any way awkward. The horse and the woman convey an impression of proper occupation of space; the horse flies but, given that, its body and that of its rider distribute their mass plausibly in response to the pull of gravity. The buildings are abstracted enough not to draw undue attention, but tell the viewer of a whole city.

Thomas Haller Buchanan said...

Daniel, I hope you don't mind, but I'm pulling your comment to the outside--with the image--as I really like how you've reflected on this.

Li-An said...

It's interesting to see a "cold" treatment on a very hot scene.