Rendering 3 (Painting)

The article I’m going to analyze is headlined “William Scott, thepainter who made the everyday into a masterpiece.” According to data provided, it was published in The Guardian on March 2^nd by Paul Laity.

In this article an English painter William Scott’s works are discussed, that were forgotten in the heady rush towards pop art and now deserve a re-evaluation. It’s a well-known fact that the artist is most often admired for his kitchen-table still lives, featuring pots, pans, bowls, plates of mackerel, pears and so on – all rendered simple and plain. According to the author, Scott painted exceptional nudes and landscapes, but the "pots and pans" remain his trademark: the subject of his pictures towards the end of the Second World War, they were still there in his more minimalist work of the 1970s. However, it’s necessary to point out that Scott's still lifes are far from naturalistic, as they dissolve the distinction between the abstract and the figurative. As the painter himself said in a statement, "behind the facade of pots and pans there is sometimes another image … a private one … sensed rather than seen".

Analyzing the situation in whole, it should be emphasized that Scott made a breakthrough in the 1950s, when he had acquired "the soundest, all-roundest international reputation of any living British painter." Unfortunately enough, even by the time he was given a major retrospective by the Tate in 1972, he had begun to fall out of favour, and the ironies of pop art quickly made him old-fashioned. However, nowadays, Paul Laity observes, Scott's circle of admirers is widening: along with other 20th-century British masterpieces his works have risen sharply in price (about £500k or more), and by the end of 2013, he can't help but be better known.

Speaking of the painter’s works and their, the author makes a supposition that they must have originated in Scott’s childhood. Due to some facts from the artist’s biography, Scott was born in Scotland, and brought up in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, the son of a sign-painter and one of 11 children. He later remembered this environment as a "very austere one with a philosophy of life," and the idea of austerity stayed with him: "I find beauty in plainness," he said, "in a conception that is precise." In this respect it is also worthwhile mentioning that Scott had a lifelong interest in childlike art, "the beauty of the thing being badly done"; the paintings he especially admired and that much influenced his later creative work were those by Rousseau, Modigliani, Bonnard and Matisse. Scott's paintings, including The Frying Pan (1946), Table Still Life (1951), The Harbour (1952) and Still Life with Orange Note (1970) were still lifes as never seen before, “badly done” and primitive even; yet they were praised and even admired.

The author concludes by saying that there’s something peculiar and even magnetic in the artist’s use of colour and simple forms, that makes us think over the rich and longstanding relationship of a master of still life with kitchen pots and pans. As for me, I can’t say I am a fan of such art as that by William Scott, and prefer works by classical painters. For me, the more realistic the picture is and the more details it contains, the more attractive it is; nevertheless, I’m not going to blame those who find beauty even in primitiveness.